{"id":225388,"date":"2026-01-09T18:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/225388\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T18:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:17:07","slug":"frequent-far-north-power-outages-leave-kerikeri-residents-in-anxious-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/225388\/","title":{"rendered":"Frequent Far North power outages leave Kerikeri residents in \u2018anxious state\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blackout affected 1267 households in Landing Rd, Waipapa Rd, Riverview Rd, Kendall Rd, Skudders Beach, and parts of Kapiro Rd, lasting two and a half hours. <\/p>\n

Resident Anne-Marie Morris said the power went out at her place about 8am for about 90 minutes. <\/p>\n

The web designer and her husband both work from home and rely on the internet, including for meetings with large global companies. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s beyond a joke,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had that outage in October, another in November, and it was only January 3, and we had this one. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd these aren\u2019t the only ones; we\u2019ve had others in our time up here. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy we have so many.\u201d <\/p>\n

Morris said she\u2019s lived in various towns and cities, including Auckland, Mount Maunganui, and Cambridge. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have never experienced so many power outages as what I\u2019ve been through here in the past two years. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou get power cuts but it\u2019s once in a blue moon. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou live in this anxious state, even with family staying at Christmas you worry.\u201d <\/p>\n

Another resident wrote: \u201cHate to sound like a Karen … but I\u2019m so over these power outages! Hopefully it won\u2019t be a long wait.\u201d <\/p>\n

One man said he\u2019d been in Kerikeri two years and experienced \u201cregular power cuts\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"FarFar North residents are frustrated with the frequent power outages in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife and I commented to each other how many there are. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the power goes, everything goes, no water, no sewage etc.\u201d <\/p>\n

The most recent outage was believed to have started at the Riverview feeder. <\/p>\n

A Top Energy spokeswoman said the 11kV line was patrolled following \u201cprotection operation\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur fault responders found a burnt bird on a pole causing a short between the HV conductor to earth.\u201d <\/p>\n

The cause of the Russell pillar box fire is still being investigated, but Top Energy said it is confident it was not because of overloading.<\/p>\n

There were also several huge power outages<\/a> between October 31 and November 8 across the entire southern part of the district. <\/p>\n

Two of those outages cut power to 23,000 customers, including one which lasted for six hours and was caused by a failure of the 33kV switchboard at Kaikohe substation, sparking a Commerce Commission investigation. <\/p>\n

When asked if residents could expect more frequent outages this year, the spokeswoman said, \u201cThe Far North has recently experienced a period of strong winds interspersed with intermittent heavy rain bursts. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis has resulted in some powerline damage. <\/p>\n

\u201cFurther contribution to outages over the holiday period were three car versus pole events, plus a third party who lost control of a tree while felling damaging to multiple poles and HV conductors.\u201d <\/p>\n

Massey University sustainable energy expert Emeritus Professor Ralph Sims said the amount of power outages \u201csounds a lot\u201d and could be because of maintenance and upgrading issues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a continual upgrade needed because of extra demand for electricity, and this could be part of the problem in Northland. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf lines aren\u2019t up to capacity and transformers are not maintained, you\u2019re going to get more outages.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sims said there were 24 lines companies in New Zealand which was \u201cbizarre for country of this size\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the demand for more and more electricity, only so much can flow through a system. If the volume is increasing, it puts more load on. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe lines company should be able to handle that. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you can\u2019t have as much control over is when more storms and trees fall down over power lines, and that\u2019s happening throughout New Zealand in recent times. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are experiencing more extreme weather as a result of climate change … the only thing power line companies can do is to cut the trees back or bury the cables in town – but that\u2019s pretty expensive.\u201d <\/p>\n

Under the Electricity (Hazards from Trees) Regulations 2003, landowners are legally required to keep trees on their property clear of lines. <\/p>\n

Northland MP Grant McCallum said he would lobby to get laws changed so lines companies could create wider corridors when clearing trees. <\/p>\n

Sims said individuals and businesses could install solar panels that are designed to function even when the lines are down. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt does give independence from outages for a few hours.\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 finance, roading, and social issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The blackout affected 1267 households in Landing Rd, Waipapa Rd, Riverview Rd, Kendall Rd, Skudders Beach, and parts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4607,8414,10666,57643,1686,528,23855,305,78,8454,16571,12514,101,4188,134736,5971,111,43,139,529,69,22507,10112,19055,10710,530,544,13672,165,4576],"class_list":["post-225388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-anxious","tag-couple","tag-cuts","tag-dependent","tag-electricity","tag-far","tag-frequent","tag-have","tag-in","tag-including","tag-kerikeri","tag-leave","tag-left","tag-living","tag-medically","tag-need","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-outages","tag-power","tag-reliable","tag-resident","tag-residents","tag-some","tag-state","tag-their","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225388","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=225388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}