Thousands of Canberra homes lost water access during main breaks in the past financial year, with repair times trailing other major cities. Icon Water, the ACT's water and sewerage provider, responded to outages at more than 22,600 properties in 2024-25.
Kambah recorded the highest number of affected properties at 1,086, followed by Wanniassa with 875 and Gungahlin with 704. Hughes and Braddon each accounted for 3% of all affected properties, despite making up only 0.7% and 1.4% of the territory's population respectively.
Unplanned interruptions lasted an average of about two hours in 2024-25, ranking fifth lowest among comparable utilities. Icon Water took 118 minutes on average to fix outages in 2023-24 and 132 minutes in 2022-23, compared to 110 minutes in Melbourne and 179 minutes in Sydney in 2023-24.
The agency recorded 303 water main breaks in 2024-25, equivalent to 8.82 breaks per 100 kilometres, the third lowest in Australia among utilities serving over 100,000 customers. A spokesperson said main breaks can occur due to soil movement, pipe age, temperature fluctuations, and other factors.
Water losses fell to an average of 39 litres per service connection per day in 2024-25, down from 66 litres in 2023-24 and 72 litres in 2022-23.
