Far North residents are frustrated by two massive power outages that happened within one week.
Far North businesses are calling for compensation after a large chunk of the district was “plunged into the dark ages” for the second time in less than a week.
Residents are also worried about the reliability of the network following the massive power cuts, the most recent on Thursday night lasting around six hours.
Top Energy has acknowledged the outages have been “frustrating and have shaken confidence” but said the cause of the two outages were unrelated, and it was “doing everything we can to ... strength the resilience of your supply”.
More than 23,000 households across the entire southern part of the district, including the Bay of Islands, Kawakawa, Whangaroa, Kaikohe and parts of the Hokianga, were left without electricity from 5.21pm to 11.40pm on Thursday.
The outage was caused by a failure of a switchboard at a Kaikohe substation, leaving the electricity network vulnerable.
Top Energy is now urging people to conserve power for another week while the network is at reduced capacity, and the damaged equipment is repaired.
“We are currently running on our smallest transformer at Kaikohe, and Ngāwhā generation is offline for planned annual maintenance, so we don’t have our usual backup,” chief executive Russell Shaw said.
Chang Siam Thai Restaurant owner Mike Nunn said he had a “complete loss of trade” after having to close the Waipapa restaurant twice, losing dozens of bookings and takeaway orders.
“It’s at least over $6000 of lost revenue.
“It’s really frustrating; we should have a better system in place, so if there’s a failure, then a back-up system comes on.
“It’s like we’ve been plunged into the dark ages again; it’s almost a third-world country.”
Cathay Cinemas owner Ross Churchouse said he lost “several thousand dollars of turnover” from 10 movie sessions that couldn’t screen because of the outages.
During the first power cut, last Friday, the power went out during the British and Irish Film Festival, “disappointing 50 or 60 people”.
“We rebooked them again last night and we got hit by a power cut again.
“Last night we lost six movie sessions, and the previous week we lost four.
“It’s got me worried about the reliability of the network – are we going to have this rolling through to the next six months?
“No one in Northland can afford not to be operating and for us, evenings are our busiest time.”
Churchouse said businesses should be compensated.
“It would be nice if they said ‘hey we’ll give you 10% off your next bill’.
“That’d be a nice gesture.”
Last Friday, the power went out about 3.40pm and disconnected the same 23,000 homes and businesses north of Hikurangi, south of Mangōnui and across the width of the North Island.
Initially, equipment failure at the Kaikohe substation was suspected, but it was later discovered the failure was caused by a tree that fell on to the 33kV line to Mt Pokaka.
Kerikeri District Business Association (KKDBA) is calling for a stronger, more resilient power network for the Far North, along with “a clear back-up plan that protects our community”.
KKDBA interim chairwoman Anika Whapshott said consistency and reliability of power supply were essential for business confidence.
“The timing couldn’t have been worse, particularly for hospitality operators, many of whom were hit during busy trading periods and have faced significant financial impacts as a result.
“Our local businesses can cope with a lot, but what they need most is reliability.”
Northland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Leah McKerrow said the outages were “very disappointing and frustrating” for businesses.
“It’s disappointing for our retailers, particularly those in hospitality, because of the food situation.
“We would be keen to understand how this happened two weeks in a row, and start to think, is our infrastructure failing us?”
Northland MP Grant McCallum said he’d been in touch with Top Energy, and the company was “just as frustrated as I am”.
“Clearly it’s a concern we’ve had a couple of significant outages in a short space of time.
“I’ll be keeping in touch with Top Energy to make sure we get to the bottom of these issues.”
When asked whether customers would be compensated, Shaw said: “We appreciate this outage has been disruptive and frustrating, especially coming so soon after the earlier event.
“We encourage people to talk with their insurers.”
Top Energy urged medically dependent customers to “have a back-up plan” and call 111 if they found themselves at risk.
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues.