Paihia business owner Craig Salmon said his Paihia Honey shop and electric vehicle charging station were affected by the recent power outages.
Northland’s fragile infrastructure has come under fire after a cluster of huge power outages plunged a large portion of the Far North into darkness.
Far North Mayor Moko Tepania says a “detailed investigation” into the cause of the power cuts is needed, while Northland MP Grant McCallum has said he’s in touch with lines company Top Energy to get to the bottom of the issue.
Top Energy has apologised for the “inconvenience, stress and disruption” the outages have caused.
But for Northlanders, they have meant binning half-cooked food that was being prepared, cooking on outdoor barbecues, and fumbling around by torchlight.
Rural residents on tank water have had no running water or flushing toilets, and farmers’ milking routines have been upset.
Hundreds of locals took to social media to air their frustrations about the outages, the first of which happened on October 31, cutting power to 23,000 households across the southern part of the district.
Six days later, the same 23,000 households in the Bay of Islands, Kawakawa, Whangaroa, Kaikohe, and parts of the Hokianga had no electricity for more than six hours.
Another outage affected 2000 households in small towns dotted around the Hokianga on November 8, and yet another cut power to 200 customers around Puketona and Oromahoe.
Waimamaku resident Julie Toi endured “three big power cuts”, all around dinner time.
Because she’s on tank water, each blackout meant no running water.
“When there’s no power, our pump doesn’t work.
“We’ve got no water source at all, and no phones as our cell phones are connected through power and the internet, so there’s no way of contacting anybody.
“We’ve always got bottled water stashed away, otherwise I don’t know how we’d cope.”
Toi said the outages were “frustrating”.
“Five hours is a long time.
“It’s obviously affecting the whole district, and it’s been a lot lately – we’re very frustrated.
“I feel for the parents, they’re preparing dinner at 5pm and next minute there’s a power cut and the kids can’t have a proper meal.”
Top Energy chief executive Russell Shaw stressed that, though the outages occurred in the same areas at roughly the same time, they were unrelated.
The first was caused by a tree that fell on to the 33kV line to Mt Pokaka.
The second was caused by a failure of a switchboard at a Kaikohe substation, described as a “highly unusual and catastrophic event”.
That outage drastically reduced capacity, and residents have been asked to conserve power while repairs are carried out over several weeks.
The other weekend, power cuts were caused by vegetation getting into the lines.
Compounding this, normal backup was not available because Ngāwhā geothermal power station was undergoing its annual maintenance.
Shaw said work to fix the Kaikohe switchboard should be complete by the end of November.
“We are working with the manufacturer to understand exactly what happened.
“Our job now is to fix the damaged equipment at Kaikohe and learn from what happened ... ”
However, Northlanders are concerned about the reliability of the network.
While Paihia resident Craig Salmon has solar at home, his Paihia Honey shop and electric vehicle charging station were both offline during the outages.
“It is concerning,” he said.
“It’s a critical infrastructure to have working for businesses, from domestic stuff to exports.
“Given the prices we’re paying, it’s vital we see the investment in the infrastructure to keep it up to date.”
Ōkaihau dairy farmer Shaun Haynes said the outages played havoc with electric fences, chillers, and the cows’ routine.
While Haynes milks in the morning and wasn’t affected, dairy farmers who milk twice a day would have been, he said.
“They can’t milk their cows as the cows get out of routine, and it impacts the milk.
“If it goes out in the morning for a long time, your milk hasn’t been able to get to temperature, you could get a buildup of E. coli from warm milk.”
Farmer Murray Jamieson, who oversees dairy and horticulture businesses for Ngāi Takoto, said power outages had been a problem in Northland for “a long, long time”.
“Given the prices we pay for power in Northland, it’s absurd.
“For the farms I look after, not having reliable power affects their bottom line and affects the viability of some of the businesses as well.”
Far North Mayor Moko Tepania said the outages were “more than inconvenient”.
“It’s damaging to our reputation when we’re trying to see economic development and business growth.
“I don’t understand how we’ve had these failures – it’s not good enough.”
Tepania said the Northland Mayoral Forum and energy suppliers had been pushing hard for an energy bridge and investment to upgrade infrastructure.
“The most recent unplanned power outages will require detailed investigation ... to ensure that in a modern nation, ongoing power supply is a given.
“We will keep advocating for this on the ground.”
Shaw of Top Energy acknowledged that power cuts have “a real impact on our customers”.
“Power cuts are frustrating when you’re in the dark, managing a health condition, running a business, or trying to cook dinner for the whānau.
“It’s not just an inconvenience, it’s stressful and disruptive, and we don’t take that lightly.”
Shaw reassured the community that the network was designed and run to be reliable, “even if, like every electricity network in the world, it cannot be 100% outage-free”.
“This has been a rare and serious failure at a key site, compounded by separate weather and vegetation faults.
“It is also a reminder of the fragility that comes with our geography and climate.”
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with roading and social issues.