Auckland blackout: Several hundred still without power

Several hundred customers are still without power in Auckland this morning as lines company Vector works to repair the remaining damaged cables.

The company restored the main St Johns feeder about midnight, allowing most customers in affected areas to have power this morning.

However, Vector spokeswoman Sandy Hodge said 324 customers were still without power this morning.

"These customers are spread throughout the network in a small pocket," she said. "As we bring the other cables back up we will be able to restore those today."

Ms Hodge said Vector expected to repair and reinstate the remaining damaged cables throughout the morning and into the afternoon. "This will allow us to reconfigure the network as those cables come in, to ensure all customers are returned to service with full load."

She said returning the St Johns and Sylvia Park cables to service had allowed the company to spread the load over more of the network. "However, we would ask that customers continue to conserve energy if [they] are in the affected areas while crews are working on the remaining damaged cables."

Vector said it had to cut power to another 200 customers in Remuera and Leonard Rd in Mt Wellington while it reconfigured the network and brought the other repaired cables back into service.

The Remuera cable had been the most difficult to repair because it was the most complex, and could be the last to be restored.

"We now expect to have the remaining cables repaired and reinstated throughout the day and into the evening, allowing us to reconfigure the network as those cables come in to ensure all customers are returned to service with full load," Ms Hodge said.

The company asked customers to continue to conserve energy in the affected areas.

Vector thanked customers for their "ongoing patience" during the outage, adding: "We appreciate the frustration it must have caused."

Vector's cables at Transpower's Penrose substation caught fire about 2am on Sunday, causing blackouts to 85,000 Vector customers. Power had been restored to all but 18,000 customers yesterday morning, but some areas dropped out again due to strain on the network.

Energy Minister Simon Bridges said today he was confident that lines company Vector acted appropriately in the wake of the power cuts in Auckland.

But a full inquiry would be required to investigate who was at fault for putting up to 85,000 residents in the dark over the last two days. (full story here)

Vector yesterday said the cause of the fire needed to be established before compensation for customers would be considered.

Fire Service assistant area manager Mike Shaw this morning said the investigation into the cause of the fire was expected to take two weeks.

"The engineers out at the substation itself are obviously involved in that," he said.

"We have got fire investigators who are actually going out there. They're looking at it being probably a two-week period before they're going to have any definitive cause ... It's going to be a pretty lengthy process."

Mr Shaw was not involved in the investigation himself.

"But I would imagine it would be quite complex, as to what actually happened and how it all came about exactly."