Transpower Responds To Latest Report Into Fallen Tower

Transpower acknowledges and accepts the recommendations of the latest report into the tower fall at Glorit on 20 June that has been released today.

The report, requested by the Minister for Energy and produced by the Electricity Authority, confirms the findings of Transpower’s own report. The tower fell because the service provider (Omexom) crew performing routine baseplate maintenance work did not follow Omexom’s standard practice and removed all of the nuts from three of the tower’s four legs.

Transpower Executive General Manager Grid Delivery Mark Ryall said Transpower apologises again to all the consumers and businesses that were impacted by the power cut as a result of the tower fall.

“Our core role is to ensure a secure and reliable national electricity grid for New Zealanders, and we never like to see people go without power. We apologise to everyone who was impacted by this event,” he said.

“We accept the recommendations for Transpower in this report. They are generally in line with the recommendations already made in the report we commissioned, which was released last month. We are well underway with the actions in response to those recommendations and are updating our progress regularly on our website.”

Mr Ryall said that while at the core of the issue was the crew’s failure to follow standard practice, it is important that we identify more broadly what lessons can be learned to prevent a similar event ever happening again. We are pleased to see the recommendations made in this report are broader than just Transpower and Omexom.

“Our focus now is on the future. Our people are passionate about the work they do to ensure New Zealanders have a reliable electricity system. We are committed to doing whatever we can to ensure an event like this never happens again and to improving regional resilience,” he said.

“With that in mind we are actively working with local distributors Northpower and Top Energy on a regional resilience and reliability plan for Northland. We are also committed to rebuilding relationships in the region and look forward to working with the community and businesses on the plan.”

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