{"id":626991,"date":"2026-10-11T03:56:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626991\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T03:56:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:56:23","slug":"former-ea-chairwoman-joins-community-push-to-cut-mahurangi-power-outages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626991\/","title":{"rendered":"Former EA chairwoman joins community push to cut Mahurangi power outages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Many locals have diesel generators for back-up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cFrom a community perspective, we are quite interested in looking at alternatives to diesel generators, which is kind of part of the plan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Kominik said Vector had \u201cquite a checkered history\u201d in the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThere are elderly people and young families in this area from Big Omaha to P\u0101kiri [about 100km north of Auckland], many of them permanent residents rather than holiday home visitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThere is a core permanent community and of course when there are either planned or unplanned outages, that\u2019s water and sewerage as well because you\u2019ve got water pumps to maintain that service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Vector chief executive Chris Blenkiron attended the meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Kominik said locals wanted to know how Vector planned to reduce the community\u2019s reliance on diesel and the part that solar and batteries might be able to play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">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. <\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Vector communications manager Matt Britton said the company was aware power outages in and around \u014cmaha had been frustrating and disruptive for the community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">The investment includes installing a new high-voltage supply to the \u014cmaha peninsula and two back-up generators near Leigh and \u014cmaha so if supply from Warkworth is lost, local back-up is available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">NZX-listed Vector said it would report on progress within 12 months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"INdwqXkrxOG\" style=\"display:none\">Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets, the primary sector and energy. He joined the Herald in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/my-account\/profile\/newsletters\/?from=cmp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/my-account\/profile\/newsletters\/?from=cmp\">Business newsletter<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many locals have diesel generators for back-up. \u201cFrom a community perspective, we are quite interested in looking at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1443,5845,12635,51,1124,138,80558,1259,3588,29846,267525,1686,8223,2740,15221,16572,6371,307783,118936,111,139,7977,69,22507,10112,21411,15400,6378,19862,61,166231,5977,102,379],"class_list":["post-626991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-about","tag-anna","tag-area","tag-auckland","tag-authority","tag-business","tag-chairwoman","tag-community","tag-cut","tag-distributor","tag-ea","tag-electricity","tag-forces","tag-former","tag-improve","tag-joined","tag-joins","tag-kominik","tag-mahurangi","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-northern","tag-nz","tag-outages","tag-power","tag-pressure","tag-push","tag-suffers","tag-supply","tag-to","tag-vector","tag-which","tag-with","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626991","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=626991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}