Many locals have diesel generators for back-up.
“From a community perspective, we are quite interested in looking at alternatives to diesel generators, which is kind of part of the plan,” she said.
Kominik said Vector had “quite a checkered history” in the area.
“There are elderly people and young families in this area from Big Omaha to Pākiri [about 100km north of Auckland], many of them permanent residents rather than holiday home visitors.
“There is a core permanent community and of course when there are either planned or unplanned outages, that’s water and sewerage as well because you’ve got water pumps to maintain that service.”
Vector chief executive Chris Blenkiron attended the meeting.
Kominik said locals wanted to know how Vector planned to reduce the community’s reliance on diesel and the part that solar and batteries might be able to play.
“We would ultimately like to be an exemplar for end-of-line communities around energy resilience and reducing the cost of power to our community and making sure that those vulnerable consumers are getting power every day, all day, all the time.”
Kominik is now chairwoman of Growth NZ, a non-partisan collective formed to advocate for long-term economic prosperity and policy reform in New Zealand.
Vector communications manager Matt Britton said the company was aware power outages in and around Ōmaha had been frustrating and disruptive for the community.
“We have around $13 million of new investment underway today to improve resilience and reduce the impact of power outages, on top of around $400,000 per year to keep trees away from local power lines,” he said.
The investment includes installing a new high-voltage supply to the Ōmaha peninsula and two back-up generators near Leigh and Ōmaha so if supply from Warkworth is lost, local back-up is available.
NZX-listed Vector said it would report on progress within 12 months.
Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.
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