Snow and lightning affects electricity supply in Gisborne

Eastland Network teams are working to restore power to hundreds of homes following severe winter weather in Gisborne, Wairoa and the East Coast.

Snow to low levels and lightning during last night and this morning resulted in a number of outages, said Eastland Network’s general manager Brent Stewart.

The most significant issue was numerous individual and simultaneous trippings of both Tuai to Gisborne 110kV circuits between 1am and 2am this morning.

“These trippings resulted in total loss of supply to the Gisborne network on several occasions for up to 15 minutes, and affected all 20,600 ICPs [individual connection points] in the city.”

Mr Stewart said line mechanic and faultmen crews had so far been able to energise only one of the 110kV circuits.

“Arrangements have been made with Eastland Network’s transmission contractor – Transfield – to mobilise resources today to travel to Gisborne in order to investigate the fault and carry out repairs as soon as possible.”

However, Mr Stewart said crews were struggling to get to areas where power was still out, with many roads closed due to the weather.

“Throughout the network about 900 ICPs remain without supply due to faults within the distribution network. We are unable to get to many of these areas by road and at the moment helicopters are also not able to fly. We hope to get helicopters in the air later today.”

Mr Stewart reminded all residents to treat all power lines as live at all times.

“Please contact Eastland Network’s call centre on 0800 206 207 to report any faults or fallen power lines.”

Areas currently without electricity supply include:

- Pehiri/Tiniroto/Parakanapa/Tahunga area

- Puha/Kanakania/Whatatutu/Motu/Matawai area

- Waingake area

- Top of Tauwhareparae

- Top of Mata Rd

- Waihi

- Tuai area

ENDS

© Scoop Media