Auckland Asked To Conserve Electricity

Media release
4 February 2009, 10.00am
Auckland Asked To Conserve Electricity

Businesses and residents in the areas affected by yesterday’s power outage are being asked to conserve electricity use today.

Transpower’s Penrose Substation is operating at reduced capacity until another trans-former can be restored to service, which is why consumers are being asked to turn off unessential appliances and lighting.

The areas affected are Onehunga to Mt Wellington, and from Newmarket to Glen In-nes, including the eastern suburbs. There is a risk of further outages in these areas if sufficient savings are not made during the day.

Patrick Strange, Transpower Chief Executive, says that an outage of this size in Auck-land is unacceptable. “We can appreciate the inconvenience this has caused.

Right now, we’re focused on keeping the lights on."

The outage was caused by a fault in a transformer, which is one of three transformers at Penrose Substation. One transformer was out due to maintenance.

The other two were managing the load until a fault in one caused the third transformer to trip.

A fault of this type within a transformer is rare and Transpower is investigating the fault.

“There is an extensive programme – billions of dollars worth – to upgrade the security and diversity of electricity supply into Auckland,” says Dr Strange. “Projects of this scale take time to be approved and built, but they are underway."

Transpower is working on restoring the second transformer (that had been out for maintenance) and it is likely to be operational tomorrow.

ENDS

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