Lights back on to more than 20,000 Napier homes and businesses

Power has been restored to more than 20,000 homes and businesses in Napier after the city was hit by a major power cut this morning.

Unison is investigating why western and northern suburbs across Napier suddenly lost power just after 9.15am.

According to the Unison outage site 10,194 properties lost electricity but a spokesman said more than 20,000 properties were without power.

It affected streets in Tamatea, Greenmeadows, Pirimai, Poraiti, Maraenui, Westshore, Onekawa and Marewa.

Power was restored to everyone by 10.25am.

Unison apologised for the power cut saying the unplanned outage across Napier and surrounding areas was still not known.

Unison energy company spokesman Danny Gough said power was lost to a big chunk of Napier, affecting some 20,000 customers.

Most homes had power restored in minutes. Others were waiting for power to come back an hour later.

Engineers were now examining what caused the outage.

The company posted on its Facebook page it would update customers on why the power went out as soon as they understood what triggered the problem.