Power fault cause narrowed down
The power fault that resulted in the loss of power to north Christchurch customers on Wednesday night last week has been
narrowed down to likely windblown debris hitting key equipment in Orion's Papanui substation. The outage, which started
at around 9.30pm, initially affected approximately 30,000 customers. 18,000 customers remained without power for three
and a half hours.
Orion CEO Rob Jamieson says "since Wednesday evening we've undertaken extensive multiple investigations to try to
determine the cause of the network failure. Specialist teams have meticulously examined 18km of high voltage lines
running between Papanui to Islington, and other in-house experts have thoroughly inspected our Papanui and Islington
substations. No damage has been found. By eliminating line and substation problems, we have been able to conclude that
the fault was most likely caused by a small piece of material being blown into specialised equipment. The lines are now
back in operation."
"Debris falling at a particular spot on our high voltage equipment, meant that power supply was lost to not one, but
both of our lines to the area. As the object would have exploded on impact, meaning no trace of it remained after the
event, we have had to methodically work through a process of elimination prior to being able conclude this was the cause
of the failure."
"While definitely a regrettable incident and we apologise for the inconvenience it may have caused some of our
customers, we are happy that our emergency procedures worked well on the night and we were able to restore power within
3 and a half hours in wet, dark and windy conditions. The incident will also hopefully serve as a reminder for people to
always be prepared for an electricity outage or emergency event."
ENDS