Vector crews kept busy with lightning strikes and fires

Network summary for week ending 2 November 2014

Electricity
A helium balloon flew into lines in Warkworth on Labour Day causing them to come down. This resulted in an outage, including a set of traffic lights. Police managed the traffic at the intersection, however there were delays for commuters coming back into the city. Vector asks that the public ensure they take care with balloons and kites around overhead lines.

Emergency services asked our control room to assist when signage fell off a roof in Papatoetoe during the week. An isolation of power supply was requested, but our crews were stood down.

Police advised that a meter may have been tampered with in Massey during the week. Our contractors attended, checked the meter for safety and reset it.

Blustery spring weather brought down trees on power lines in Swanson and Remuera during the week. Our crews removed a landowner’s branch from lines in Remuera, and an emergency shutdown was required in Swanson to remove the vegetation.

A suspected lightning strike on a Transpower transformer caused an outage in Warkworth. The issue was quickly resolved and power was fully restored.

Feeder faults were reported in Kawau Island, Warkworth (2), Balmoral, Clevedon, Waimauku, Rothesay Bay, Howick, Mangere East and Manukau, many of which were as a result of lightning strikes during the electrical storms mid-week.

Car v. pole incidents occurred in Maraetai, Favona, Mt Roskill, Epsom and Wiri, and cars hit pillars in Henderson and Papatoetoe. The Wiri incident was referred to the council, because a street light had been damaged. In Epsom, Chorus had to complete repairs before Vector’s assets could be reinstated.

There were house fires in Papatoetoe, Penrose, Avondale, Auckland Central and Glendene during the week. Our crews isolated power to these incidents at the request of emergency services. Our contractors attended the Avondale incident and located an internal fault, which required a private electrician.

Gas
A smell of gas in Otara during the week turned out to be a false alarm and emergency services advised our crews to stand down.

Crews responded to third party damage at Mt Maunganui during the week. Our service provider attended and assessed the damage and made repairs.

Shorts
• Vector owns over 18,000 kilometres of overhead and underground lines in the greater Auckland area, and 12,752 of gas pipe lines, almost half of which supply gas to Auckland.
• 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. Our majority shareholder, with voting rights of 75.4%, is the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust (AECT).

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

ENDS

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