Before revision: We  improve our earlier lower bounds on the number of electrical transformations required to reduce an n-vertex plane graph in the worst case [SOCG 2016] in two different directions.
After revision: We strengthen the connections between electrical transformations and homotopy from the planar setting---observed and studied since Steinitz---to arbitrary surfaces with punctures. As a result, we improve our earlier lower bounds on the number of electrical transformations required to reduce an n-vertex plane graph in the worst case [SOCG 2016] in two different directions.