The fault that caused Transpower to issue a grid emergency and warn of possible power cuts in the North Island has now been fixed.
Transpower have now lifted the grid emergency and warning about possible power cuts to the North Island.
The initial warning was issued at 5.30am this morning and was upgraded to an emergency warning at 7.15am.
It came after there was a fault on the HVDC cable which transfers electricity from the South Island to the North Island.
The warning notice said if demand didn't drop it would have been forced to disconnect consumers without warning.
Some power was still flowing across the cable but there was risk of a second fault suddenly stopping the flow of electricity.
Speaking to Breakfast this morning, Transpower chief executive Alison Andrews said at 7.45am the piece of equipment that was at fault was repaired on the HVDC system.
Transpower CEO Alison Andrews talks about the incident which happened and was resolved on Friday morning. (Source: Breakfast)
"Unfortunately equipment does fail from time to time and this is why we have these well-oiled machines.
"Our control rooms in the industry work really well and have a lot of procedures in place and processes to manage through these types of emergencies."
She said the emergency warning lasted around 30 minutes, from 7.15am to 7.45am this morning.
Andrews said the recent bout of cold weather and snow in some regions is not related to the power warnings.
"Equipment failure is random, it happens from time to time, we'll obviously have to do a proper investigation to understand what happened so we can learn from it and make sure it doesn't happen again."
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