Homes and businesses across Rotorua were left without power in a North Island-wide outage yesterday, forcing some stores to close.
Rotorua, Taupo and Whakatane were impacted by power outages affecting the entire North Island at one of the busiest times of the day.
Electricity distribution company Unison Networks said Transpower, the National Grid operator, experienced a loss of generation at Huntly at 12.30pm yesterday which had a spiral effect on feeders across the North Island.
Twenty per cent of Unison customers in Taupo, Rotorua and Hawke's Bay were affected, it was reported this morning.
Locals were left without power for at least two hours in areas including Owhata and Lynmore through to Western Heights, Pukehangi, Selwyn Heights and Ngongotaha.
Many Rotorua businesses had to close their stores during the power cut including McDonald's and BP along Fairy Springs during their lunch-time rush. Staff at both stores had stationed themselves around the entrances to tell customers they had to close.
CLOSED: BP Fairy Springs staff cordoned off their pumps and had to turn customers away during the power cut yesterday.
BP administrator Andrew McGovern said they lost power at 1.05pm, which meant they couldn't sell gas or make coffee and had to throw away hot food. They were also trying to minimise the amount of frozen foods getting wasted. "It will cost us a bit."
At McDonald's, manager Deborah Meyer said they missed out on their lunch rush, saying they would have been selling $1500 worth of products an hour at that time if they had been operating. She said it also cost them money because they still had staff to pay. It was likely to take an extra 20 minutes before McDonald's could reopen once power went back on at both stores about 2.30pm.
Unison Central Region customer relations manager Danny Gough said determining how many customers had been affected by the outage was difficult because it was caused by Transpower and only some feeders were affected, which caused pockets of areas to be without power. He was likely to have an idea of numbers today.
Ngongotaha Four Square closed its doors. Owner Sailesh Patel put a sign on the door saying: "Sorry shop closed due to power cut."
He said he lost power about 12.45pm and was told by his power supplier they were working on getting the outage sorted.
While he said it was unfortunate, it was something he couldn't do anything about.
"It's frustrating but it's a fact of life."
At Ngongotaha Books Lotto Postshop and Kiwi Bank, staff kept operating only allowing cash transactions during the power outage between 12.30pm and 2.55pm. Rotorua's Central Mall wasn't affected and the central city appeared to have escaped any cuts.
However owner Shalendra Singh said they couldn't do many sales because a lot of customers didn't carry cash.
He said at this time of the day during people's lunch break and at this time of the year, the week before Christmas, they would have been busy.
He let out a scream of relief when the power turned back on.
Power was cut to residents at Regency Park Estate from 12.30pm but owner Dennis Walsh said residents were not affected too much and probably not as much as other resthomes that had hospital facilities.
Power was back on throughout the North Island by 3pm.
Whakatane Hospital had a complete power outage but Bay of Plenty District Health Board communications manager Diana Marriott said there was no loss of service as the generator switched on instantly.
Whakatane's central business district was not affected but surrounding areas of Whakatane (Te Teko, Awakeri, Otakiri, Matata, Edgecumbe and Thornton) were without electricity until the reserve power kicked in. Waimana and Ruatoki were not disrupted.