Power and phone services have been restored to more properties affected by a wild storm this week, but thousands still remain without power.
There are still about 15,000 properties without power in the Gippsland area after the storm damaged energy infrastructure and interrupted supply to half a million homes.
AusNet said most homes will be reconnected today but a small number will face outages into next week.
Karen Winsbury from AusNet told ABC Radio the restoration of power has been a challenging process.
“We made some good progress overnight with about 7,000 customers [reconnected] just overnight,” she said.
“[They] should be very pleased to see their lights on this morning but it is proving very hard going.”
AusNet said there were 586 faults related to the storm, with 15 of those faults affecting about 9,000 customers.
“There is so much damage across the network so for people who are at the end of the lines or in really remote parts of the network, there’s damage, then we fix that and find something else,” Ms Winsbury said.
Telecommunications are being restored to five of the six communities still without phone service since Tuesday.
The Victorian State Emergency Service [SES] said it was still dealing with a backlog of calls, particularly in Gippsland which was hardest hit by Tuesday’s wild weather.
The SES said it would take days to clear the backlog.
On Friday, authorities confirmed 60 homes had been lost in bushfires that started on Tuesday and the fierce storm that swept across the state on the same day.
The fires claimed 44 properties around the Grampians National park, mostly in the town of Pomonal.
A further 16 homes were destroyed by the storm.