Northland Age
  • Northland Age home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Rural
  • Opinion
  • Kaitaia weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Far North
  • Kaitaia
  • Kaikohe
  • Bay of Islands
  • Whangārei

Weather

  • Kaitaia
  • Whangārei
  • Dargaville

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Northland Age

`If it could go wrong...'

By Peter Jackson
Northland Age·
15 Jun, 2020 11:35 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Top Energy's 'generator farm' in Kaitaia will soon be automated. Photo / Top Energy

Top Energy's 'generator farm' in Kaitaia will soon be automated. Photo / Top Energy

Last week is one that Top Energy chief executive Russell Shaw would like to forget.

"If it could go wrong it did go wrong," he said on Friday, just as news arrived that there was another outage in Kaikohe.

The problems began on Monday morning, when the supply was lost from one end of the Far North to the other as the result of a Transpower fault, when one line was closed down for maintenance and there as a bird strike on the other. Shaw said bird strikes were very common, but the problem on this occasion was that the other line was already out of service.

The supply was lost for 50 minutes in the Kaitaia area again on Tuesday evening, and for 30 minutes in the south of the district on Thursday afternoon. Friday morning's outage in Kaikohe was believed to have been the result of equipment failure, likely arising from earlier outages over the previous three weeks.

Shaw said the major problem was deficient cabling at the Kaikohe substation, which Top Energy bought from Transpower in 2012.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"Much of the wiring is not as it is shown in the diagrams," he said.

That had not been a problem for the last 60 years, but the issues were now being discovered as crews worked to connect the system to the new station at Ngāwhā. The cause of Tuesday's outage had been found by "switching everything off," while Thursday's had been caused simply by changing a corroded fuse, which was not correctly marked.

"We're fixing faults that have been there forever," Shaw said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"The challenge now is to ensure that we don't continue finding ourselves in this situation, but I can't be confident that there won't be more. There is still about two months' work to be done."

He emphasised that the outages had not been caused by human error, adding that once the fault had been found, which was not always a simple process, it took about 20 minutes to "reboot" the supply.

"It's very frustrating," he said.

"I understand the impact these outages have on people, and all I can do is apologise, and repeat that no one did anything wrong.

"Once we repair this equipment we will be inspecting all our main lines in the area with thermal imaging cameras to identify any hot spots that could cause further outages."

Meanwhile the two major outages earlier in the week had tested the line company's communications systems, which had not coped well.

"Our call centre was overwhelmed, and our outage centre failed," the company said on its Facebook page.

"These were the first outages since we automated the outage centre by connecting it to our network control system. Previously all outages were manually loaded. This is especially disappointing, as we want the outage centre and app to be the principal system that customers go to for information.

"We are close to fixing the issues, and we encourage people to subscribe to the website outage centre or download the app from Apple or Android. We expect the fix to be completed today."

Questions had also been asked about the company's generators, and why they did not kick in when the outages occurred. The generators at Taipā and Omanaia did start, although the main feed had been restored by the time they had 'run up, but Kaitaia's have yet to be automated. The generators there are scheduled for testing this week, and will then be commissioned.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

That process had been delayed by the Covid-19 lockdown, the work not being deemed essential. Physical work had been completed in late March, before the level 4 lockdown took effect.

Once automated the generators, in Bonnetts Rd, would kick in in about 30 minutes, possibly a little longer, after the main supply was lost. The supply would not be lost at all in the event of a planned outage.

"It might not have looked like it this week, but everyone is doing a good job," Shaw added.

"We're just having to fix problems that are not of our making as they arise, and unfortunately that it is having a real impact on a lot of our customers.

'It's been cold this week too, which has increased power consumption, so all this could not have happened at a worse time."

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Northland Age

Northland Age

School lunch programme saves $130m, student satisfaction rises, Govt says

10 Jul 02:00 AM
Northland Age

Changing times: Kiwibank's new model prompts mixed reactions

10 Jul 02:00 AM
Northland Age

Far North approves 10.95% rates rise, slightly lower than forecast

09 Jul 06:00 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Northland Age

School lunch programme saves $130m, student satisfaction rises, Govt says

School lunch programme saves $130m, student satisfaction rises, Govt says

10 Jul 02:00 AM

Associate Education Minister David Seymour says complaints have fallen by 92%.

Changing times: Kiwibank's new model prompts mixed reactions

Changing times: Kiwibank's new model prompts mixed reactions

10 Jul 02:00 AM
Far North approves 10.95% rates rise, slightly lower than forecast

Far North approves 10.95% rates rise, slightly lower than forecast

09 Jul 06:00 PM
Far North news in brief: FNDC reviews rates policy, Toastie Takeover

Far North news in brief: FNDC reviews rates policy, Toastie Takeover

09 Jul 05:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • The Northland Age e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to The Northland Age
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The Northland Age
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP