Tag Archives: Power cut

Thoughts on Auckland’s Power Supply

Posted on by Brad Heap

In 1998 the Auckland CBD lost power for two weeks and had continualled rolling outages for a further six weeks after three cables supplying power to the city all failed in Unison.

In 2007 there was another massive power outage after strong winds took down one power pylon cable and crippled the entire city’s supply.

Now in 2009 we have three transformers fail in unsion and knock out a large proprotion of the city.

More than a decade after the first major incident of this type it still fails me how the same scenario is repeating on a semi regular basis. Surely something as vital as power should be built with redundant supply lines.

Only in NZ?

The Weather “Bomb”

Posted on by Brad Heap

I will do a full blog post after the storm.

But nothing that exciting to report.

Given that this is meant to be the worse storm in years it seems very similar to this post from february this year (5 months ago, not years): http://www.brad.net.nz/blog/2008/02/the-flooded-garden/

Update #1: Okay we can now call this storm a real storm. Power cut out at around 3.50pm this afternoon. Came back on at 6.45pm which meant I missed the news. Grr.

I listened to the 5 and 6 o’clock newstalkzb radio updates. First there were 35,000 and then at 6pm 53,000 homes in northern Auckland without power. At the time they stated that any above ground power cuts would not be fixed today as it was dangerous. So I was presently surprised when the power came back on at 6.45pm.

The eye of the storm crossed Albany at around 5.50pm and it was indeed a sight to behold. Not as impressive as you see in the movies, however, you could still see the wall of storm cloud and clearish skies directly above you with no wind or rain for about 15 or so minutes. Quite cool really.

Note to self: Make sure you have candles, fresh torch batteries and gas for gas cooker ready for next storm. I had a cousin drop off candles and batterys but tonights dinner was cold. Thank God for canned fish. I had a milo the instant the power came back on.

Power restored over networks

Date: 26-07-2008
Updated at 6:45pm.
The following areas have had power restored throughout the day. There still may be pockets of no power remaining due to further network damage and damaged customer owned service lines. Our crews will continue to work throughout the night and tomorrow to restore power.

Atkinson Rd, Belmont, Browns Bay, Coatesville, Helensville, Henderson Valley, Howick, Laingholm, Mangere East, Manly, Manukau, Maraetai, Northern, Papakura, Riverhead, Snells Beach, Spur Road, Swanson, Takanini, Torbay, Parts of Waiheke, Waimauku, Warkworth, Wellsford, Woodford Ave,

Update #2: Well the power came back on and then about an hour and a half later my Internet connection died. I can’t win. It has finally come back on, 15 hours after it went out. Grrr. Anyway storm is over now. I will post full analysis soon.

Customers may experience intermittent disruption of Wireless connectivity in Auckland (Albany, North Harbour, Rosedale) between Saturday, 26 July 2008 8:30 p.m. and Sunday, 27 July 2008 11:05 a.m.. Engineers are working to resolve this issue. Woosh Wireless apologises for any inconvenience caused and thank you in advance for your co-operation.