Transpower says the "vast majority" of consumers in Northland have power back on this morning after a fallen pylon caused widespread outages yesterday.
Transpower said outages across the Northland region occurred after a tower came down unexpectedly near Glorit — between Wellsford and Kaukapakapa — around 11am when a crew was on site.
The company initially hoped to be able to lift the fallen tower to restore one 220kV circuit by Friday afternoon, but said in an update this morning, it was now expected to be completed "late Saturday or early Sunday".
Power was out to much of Northland yesterday after the pylon near Glorit fell. (Source: 1News)
"We apologise to those impacted and assure them that we are working hard to fully restore power to everyone as quickly as possible," it said.
Transpower's grid delivery manager Mark Ryall told Breakfast the "vast majority of consumers have their power back on" as of 6.30am today.
"Were managing to supply that load through the 110kV remaining network and the embedded generation up in the regions."
The Energy Minister has called the incident "unacceptable", ordering a review of the incident. (Source: 1News)
Transpower requested those in areas from Warkworth northwards who have power on to continue to conserve it during peak times today.
Ryall said things get "a bit tighter" during peak periods of power use between 6am and 9am in the morning and 5pm and 9pm at night.
"We're very focused on getting the power back on and working with distribution partners [and] Civil Defence. We're really focused now on the repair, to getting the 220kV solution up and running and provide resilience back into the area.
Ryall said it would be "unhelpful" to speculate on how the pylon fell yesterday.
"I assure you; we'll do a thorough investigation and find out exactly what's going on and follow through on that."
He said there was a "temporary tower solution" set up on site with an aim to restring the conductor by late Saturday or early Sunday.
Energy Minister Simeon Brown visits the scene after a pylon collapsed cutting Northland's "fragile" power supply. (Source: 1News)
"We have engineering and contractor solutions being worked through.
There were more than 12,000 pylons and structures around the country and having one fall over is "very, very rare event", said Ryall.
"Some parts of New Zealand are supplied predominantly by one double-circuit transmission line. It is a very reliable asset and provides a very reliable service normally. So we need to investigate what has gone on in this case, as it shouldn't have fallen over."
Northland businesses 'band together'
A Northland café owner said the "stress is pretty real" after waking up and not knowing whether the grid would handle the load or if her business would be able to operate.
"The loss of trade is substantial… We can't trade without power at all," said Jess Loftus.
She said it was another example of the community being forced to "band together" through tough times.
"We sort of know 'no one's coming to help us up here'. We sort of feel like the family member left out in the cold a lot out here in Northland from the Brynderwyns being closed and us being separated."
"It just feels like another feather in the cap of us just having to get on with it."
She said it was "not good enough" for businesses and vulnerable communities including the elderly and very young that need power.
"You sort of just hope for the best and it's just a bit of a shock that the power can go like that… how does this happen?"
The Energy Minister said it is important to understand why the region was left in such a vulnerable state. (Source: Breakfast)
Resilience issues must be 'carefully managed' — Energy Minister
Energy Minister Simeon Brown told Breakfast the widespread outages were "awful".
"The priority is to get that power restored as quickly as possible so that businesses, people, elderly, can get the power you need."
He said he would be in Northland today to visit the site and meet with some of the leaders in Whangārei too.
"I would just praise the lines companies in Northland who have being doing everything they can to make sure they can distribute that load to the people that need it."
He said "questions need to be answered" including why the power grid was left in a vulnerable state with the other line was down for maintenance at the time.
"As has happened in the past with events like this, my expectation is there will also be an independent investigation to understand exactly what went wrong here in terms of not just the incident, but the resilience of the network."
"There was a whole lot of things happening at the same time and actually Northland is a vulnerable community, and those resilience issues need to be very carefully managed."
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