This morning at around 7 all power was turned off to the main substation in Kaitaia, Northland, New Zealand for a period of up to 12 Hours to do emergency maintenance by Transpower.
The incoming line is a single circuit 110 kV line feeding the Transpower substation 4 x 110 / 33 kV transformers, via the Mangamuka ranges.
My brother lives there and checked with me what was going on there, hence I checked with our Auckland controlroom / fault centre who were aware of contractors blowing rocks in the area and somehow may have damaged insulators or pylons.
It's interesting to see that not many customers up north were notified via radio as there are a couple of big timber mills like JNL Timber.
About 10,000 customers were affected, wonder how the charterclaims are going to work out re the contractor who caused the damage.
He needs a please explain and good insurance I guess.
