Electricity company Aurora has apologised to residents in the Hāwea and Makarora areas who experienced a power cut on Monday evening (June 30).

“Any time the power is out is inconvenient, but especially during the winter, in the evening and over the school holidays,” Aurora future network and operations general manager Matt Settle said.

“We apologise … for the power cut last night and want to reassure people we will continue to investigate the causes of the faults and put in place any necessary corrective actions.”

Matt said the company was still investigating the cause, but the initial investigation had identified several contributing factors.

The power went out to 2,065 customers at 5:14pm on Monday with full power restored to all customers before 8.00pm, Matt said.

“We made a decision to cut the power a second time, for safety reasons, some 30 minutes later and at the request of Fire and Emergency NZ, who were notified of a power line close to the ground on Domain Road in Hāwea,” he said.

In the second supply interruption 1,882 customers were affected, with power restored in stages from 9:00pm. 

“The majority of customers were back on by 10:06pm and the remaining 361 restored at 12:37am. 

“... we are continuing to investigate the causes of these two faults.”

Matt said Aurora has had “a spotlight” on the Hāwea and Makarora areas since late last year, when the company first noticed an increase in the number of unplanned power outages.

There were 13 unplanned outages over the past year (including Monday night’s) that affected the wider Hāwea and Makarora areas.

“The Hāwea township has experienced significant growth in recent years and our regional electricity development plan that will be released publicly later this year will set out the longer-term options for enhancing and developing the Upper Clutha network,” Matt said.

The long and rural single electricity lines and feeders that supply Makarora will always be more vulnerable to unplanned supply interruptions than urban networks, which have secondary back feed options, he said.

“This is the case for similar networks across the country with network configurations like those that supply rural Makarora. 

“It's worth noting that outages are caused by largely uncontrollable factors such as vegetation, wildlife and car impacts as well as more avoidable factors such as defective equipment,” he said.

PHOTO: Supplied