Bay of Plenty power outages: 902 customers still without supply

High winds caused widespread outages in the Coromandel and western Bay of Plenty.

There are 902 customers in the western Bay of Plenty still without power after the weekend storm.

High winds caused widespread outages in the Coromandel and western Bay of Plenty regions of Powerco’s electricity network.

Most damage was from trees bringing down power poles and lines.

Powerco crews are working on the remaining outages which may involve major repairs due to extensive damage, such as downed poles and lines.

Crews reported they were continuing to find damaged poles and lines.

The largest outages involve the Minden area, Ōmokoroa and Kaitemako.

In the Minden area, 176 customers have no power, after lines came down.

In Ōmokoroa in the western Bay of Plenty, 81 customers were affected.

In Kaitemako, in the western Bay of Plenty, 59 customers were affected.

A Powerco spokesperson said the company thanked customers for their patience and understanding as crews worked as quickly and safely as possible to restore power.

At 6am Monday, 1695 Powerco customers in the North Island were without supply.

The majority of the outages were in the western Bay of Plenty.

Powerco head of network operations Mark Dunn said power was restored to about 4000 customers in and around Whangamatā on Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, the weekend’s strong winds downed trees and caused power cuts to thousands around Rotorua.

Unison spokesperson Ester du Fresne said around 2500 customers connected to Unison’s network in the Rotorua area “experienced sustained outages following powerful winds”.