{"id":139063,"date":"2025-11-17T06:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T06:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139063\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T06:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T06:41:11","slug":"northland-power-outages-spark-call-for-investigation-into-fragile-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/139063\/","title":{"rendered":"Northland power outages spark call for investigation into fragile network"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of locals took to social media to air their frustrations about the outages, the first of which happened on October 31<\/a>, cutting power to 23,000 households across the southern part of the district.<\/p>\n

Six days later, the same 23,000 households<\/a> in the Bay of Islands, Kawakawa, Whangaroa, Kaikohe, and parts of the Hokianga had no electricity for more than six hours.<\/p>\n

Another outage affected 2000 households in small towns dotted around the Hokianga on November 8, and yet another cut power to 200 customers around Puketona and Oromahoe.<\/p>\n

Waimamaku resident Julie Toi endured \u201cthree big power cuts\u201d, all around dinner time.<\/p>\n

Because she\u2019s on tank water, each blackout meant no running water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s no power, our pump doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got no water source at all, and no phones as our cell phones are connected through power and the internet, so there\u2019s no way of contacting anybody.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always got bottled water stashed away, otherwise I don\u2019t know how we\u2019d cope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TopTop Energy has apologised for the inconvenience of numerous power outages caused by various factors.<\/p>\n

Toi said the outages were \u201cfrustrating\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive hours is a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously affecting the whole district, and it\u2019s been a lot lately \u2013 we\u2019re very frustrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel for the parents, they\u2019re preparing dinner at 5pm and next minute there\u2019s a power cut and the kids can\u2019t have a proper meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top Energy chief executive Russell Shaw stressed that, though the outages occurred in the same areas at roughly the same time, they were unrelated.<\/p>\n

The first was caused by a tree that fell on to the 33kV line to Mt Pokaka.<\/p>\n

The second was caused by a failure of a switchboard at a Kaikohe <\/a>substation, described as a \u201chighly unusual and catastrophic event\u201d.<\/p>\n

That outage drastically reduced capacity, and residents have been asked to conserve power while repairs are carried out over several weeks.<\/p>\n

The other weekend, power cuts were caused by vegetation getting into the lines.<\/p>\n

Compounding this, normal backup was not available because Ng\u0101wh\u0101 geothermal power station was undergoing its annual maintenance.<\/p>\n

Shaw said work to fix the Kaikohe switchboard should be complete by the end of November.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with the manufacturer to understand exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job now is to fix the damaged equipment at Kaikohe and learn from what happened … \u201d<\/p>\n

\"FarmerFarmer Murray Jamieson said a reliable electricity network was vital for farming businesses.<\/p>\n

However, Northlanders are concerned about the reliability of the network.<\/p>\n

While Paihia resident Craig Salmon has solar at home, his Paihia Honey shop and electric vehicle charging station were both offline during the outages.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is concerning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a critical infrastructure to have working for businesses, from domestic stuff to exports.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the prices we\u2019re paying, it\u2019s vital we see the investment in the infrastructure to keep it up to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u014ckaihau dairy farmer Shaun Haynes said the outages played havoc with electric fences, chillers, and the cows\u2019 routine.<\/p>\n

While Haynes milks in the morning and wasn\u2019t affected, dairy farmers who milk twice a day would have been, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t milk their cows as the cows get out of routine, and it impacts the milk.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it goes out in the morning for a long time, your milk hasn\u2019t been able to get to temperature, you could get a buildup of E. coli from warm milk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farmer Murray Jamieson, who oversees dairy and horticulture businesses for Ng\u0101i Takoto, said power outages had been a problem in Northland for \u201ca long, long time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the prices we pay for power in Northland, it\u2019s absurd.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the farms I look after, not having reliable power affects their bottom line and affects the viability of some of the businesses as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FarFar North Mayor Moko Tepania says the outages will require a detailed investigation.<\/p>\n

Far North Mayor Moko Tepania said the outages were \u201cmore than inconvenient\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s damaging to our reputation when we\u2019re trying to see economic development and business growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand how we\u2019ve had these failures \u2013 it\u2019s not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tepania said the Northland Mayoral Forum and energy suppliers had been pushing hard for an energy bridge and investment to upgrade infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most recent unplanned power outages will require detailed investigation … to ensure that in a modern nation, ongoing power supply is a given.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will keep advocating for this on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaw of Top Energy acknowledged that power cuts have \u201ca real impact on our customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPower cuts are frustrating when you\u2019re in the dark, managing a health condition, running a business, or trying to cook dinner for the wh\u0101nau.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just an inconvenience, it\u2019s stressful and disruptive, and we don\u2019t take that lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaw reassured the community that the network was designed and run to be reliable, \u201ceven if, like every electricity network in the world, it cannot be 100% outage-free\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a rare and serious failure at a key site, compounded by separate weather and vegetation faults.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is also a reminder of the fragility that comes with our geography and climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with roading and social issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of locals took to social media to air their frustrations about the outages, the first of which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,138,3043,94642,8615,65271,2079,2082,80258,8482,1702,296,12898,3242,3805,111,139,529,1067,24926,69,22507,34864,36657,10112,9643,8238],"class_list":["post-139063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-business","tag-call","tag-cluster","tag-come","tag-darkness","tag-fire","tag-for","tag-fragile","tag-huge","tag-infrastructure","tag-into","tag-investigation","tag-large","tag-network","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-northland","tag-northlands","tag-nz","tag-outages","tag-plunged","tag-portion","tag-power","tag-spark","tag-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}