Tairawhiti spared cuts as national grid struggles in cold

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Gisborne residents managed to keep their lights on last night, as thousands elsewhere in the North Island went dark.

“Eastland Network was required by Transpower, as the system operator, to reduce load yesterday and overnight,” a spokewoman for lines company Eastland Network said.

“Rather than turning off any customers, Eastland Network achieved this by controlling hot water cylinders, and running our diesel generators as well as our Waihi hydro power station. This does show the benefit of having energy resources embedded in the local network.”

Last night’s outages affected parts of Wellington, Kapiti Coast, Taupo, Hamilton, Napier, Hastings, Auckland and Whangarei.

None were warned that they would be without power, on a night which saw many cities head towards, or below, zero degrees.

The national grid operator gave more than 24 hours’ notice to power distribution companies that supplies were at a critical level, or leading to an “all time record peak”, said Transpower’s general manager of operations, Dr Stephen Jay.

The first warning was given at 4.40pm on Sunday before another warning was given at 1.02pm yesterday.

A final “Grid Emergency Notice” was then issued at 5.10pm stating that power would be out from 6pm until 7pm.

However, in many areas the outage lasted until at least 9pm. Some providers weren’t expected to turn the power back on until closer to midnight.

In today’s New Zealand Herald, Transpower said the country was close to another power crisis this morning after last night’s power

cuts.

Dr Jay told the Herald he couldn’t rule out any further disruption to the network, stating “the emergency is far from over”.

“Things are running tight. Supplies have been running to the wire this morning.”

Energy Minister Megan Woods was this morning in urgent talks with Transpower and the Electricity Authority.