Vector Network News

Network Summary for week ending 14 October 2012

ELECTRICITY
This weekend’s powerful storm saw parts of the northern and western areas of Auckland without power.

Violent winds and intermittent heavy squalls forced trees and branches down over power lines in those areas. Faults crews worked around the clock to deal with multiple small outages for customers throughout Auckland.

It was a different story during the week - temperatures are on the rise and it feels like summer is almost within sight. Faults crews attended three fires including two house fires and a shorting neon sign outside of the accident and emergency centre in Ease Tamaki, Auckland.

Faults crews also attended vegetation striking in Devonport and lines that were brought down in Milford by children kicking a ball. Crews attended a fire in Meadowbank caused by cables that had been hit with a digger and managed a prolonged outage in New Lynn.

There was one car v pole in the week involving a truck that had backed into a pole on Puketapapa Street in Mt Roskill, the lines were isolated for safety and then re-hung.

GAS TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION

There were two third party strikes on our gas distribution network this week. In St Mary’s Bay a contractor struck a gas services pipe while trying to locate it. And in the centre of Auckland intoxicated members of the public repeatedly kicked a pipe which resulted in a valve leak. In all cases fault crews made sites safe and repaired the equipment. Please take care around our gas network and call 0508 B4 U WORK (248 967) or 0800 B4 U DIG if outside Auckland.

PROJECT UPDATE

Middlemore Hospital - Vector’s capital project’s group have recently completed a project to construct a new back-up 11kV feeder to Middlemore hospital. The project was required in order to give the Hospital more capacity and reliability.

The project involved a new 2.5km 11kV cable from Vector’s Mangere East substation (installed by directional drilling) direct to the Hospital, unlike the old back-up feeder which supplied several different loads. Features of the project included several drill-shots under the main trunk railway (including future-proofing ducts), some challenging wet conditions during construction and a one week live test of the new circuit to give the customer confidence that it would be reliable when it needs to be used. Work was carried out around the main hospital entrance which had to be carefully coordinated with hospital staff to avoid disruption to patients and ambulances. (Photos available)
SHORTS

• Vector owns over 17,737 kilometres of overhead and underground lines in the greater Auckland area, and 12,572 kilometres of gas pipe lines, with almost half supplying gas to Auckland.

• Dynamic four-piece Hot Chelle Rae, winners of the 2011 American Music Award for Best New Artist, make a triumphant return to Vector Arena on Saturday, 20 October. Vector, proud sponsor of the Arena.

Vector owns and manages a unique portfolio which consists of electricity distribution, gas transmission and distribution, electricity and gas metering installations and data management services, natural gas and LPG and fibre optic networks.

Vector is listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange with ticker symbol VCT. For further information, visit www.vector.co.nz

© Scoop Media