Auckland region relatively unscathed by Cyclone Pam

Network summary for week ending 15 March 2015

Despite gusty winds and some heavy bursts of rain, the Auckland region has come through the night relatively unscathed by Cyclone Pam. The number of customers affected was relatively low, with five smaller outages occurring in Silverdale, Kumeu, Takatu, Riverhead and Remuera overnight. These were all restored early this morning.

Vegetation struck lines on Waiheke Island this morning, causing an outage near Oneroa. Crews that were already stationed on the island in preparation for the cyclone started repairs straight away and the outage was restored within 50 minutes.

Crews have worked overnight to ensure sites are safe and will continue working on any new outages today. Winds are expected to remain high until around midday.

Electricity

Our crews carried out urgent repair work on a Vector asset in Three Kings during the week, after a car v pole incident. Emergency services advised us of the incident and our contractors were on hand to make the site safe.

An emergency shutdown was carried out in Whitford during the week after another car v pole incident. Emergency repairs were needed, and a Vector pole was replaced. A pole also had to be replaced at a car v pole incident in Penrose.

Our contractors isolated power to three house fires during the week, in Glen Eden, Beach Haven and Wattle Downs.

Two reports of lines down during the week, in Manurewa and Papakura, saw no damage to our network. Repairs were made to lines down in Coatesville during the week. In Royal Oak, our crews worked in with Chorus, as they had to repair their asset before we could reinstate ours. A case of lines down in Dairy Flat resulted in urgent further work on a Vector asset.

Our crews attended to lines down in New Lynn West during the week. Their investigations showed that it was an inactive hot water line so it was disconnected and removed.

There was a feeder fault in Wellsford during the week.

Gas

Emergency services requested an isolation of gas supply in Kamo during the week, but this report turned out to be a false alarm.

Our service providers completed repairs to third party damage in Dannemora and Ponsonby during the week.

Network repairs were carried out in Hamilton during the week after emergency services reported a smell of gas.

Projects

Detailed design work is almost complete on Vector’s new zone substation at Westgate. This substation will service the Westgate development, which has been identified in Council’s Auckland Plan as a key metropolitan growth centre. When completed, this 56Ha green-field site will comprise offices, general business and light industrial, mixed-use and residential developments. Already completed in the development are Mitre 10 MEGA and Palmers Planet (2014) and PAK’nSAVE (2015).

Drilling to install cable ducts under SHW16 has been done and contractors have started work on the remaining street works. This work will be completed in June, and construction work on the substation building will start in July. Commissioning of the Westgate substation will take place in 2016.

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