No power for day in Kaitaia

Top Energy CEO Russell Shaw

Kaitaia and surrounding areas will be without electricity for most of the day once again on November 29 while Top Energy undertakes major maintenance work, including replacing a cracked concrete power pole at Umawera.

The outage, which is scheduled to start at 8am and end at 5pm, will replace the annual day-long maintenance outage planned for March next year. The company will be running newspaper advertisements in advance to advise what areas will be affected. The damaged pole, south of Mangamuka, had moved as a result of the foundation failing, CEO Russell Shaw said. That had brought significant additional stress to bear on the pole, which had cracked and was in danger of collapsing.

If it fell it would cut all power to Kaitaia while emergency repairs were made. Bringing the day-long outage forward from March would enable the replacement to be combined with other essential work on the line, and limit the duration of the outage to a single day.

Kaitaia was linked to the national grid at Kaikohe by just one old and vulnerable high-voltage electricity line that Top Energy bought three years ago.

"This is an old transmission line," Mr Shaw said.

"We are doing everything we can to build a second line to reduce our reliance on this one, but land owner negotiations are taking significantly longer than we had hoped."

Building a second transmission line to Kaitaia is proving to be a much slower process than Top Energy had anticipated. Mr Shaw said the Public Works Act, which was always the last resort, was being used to gain access to with six properties, with the issue the level of compensation for the landowners.

Mr Shaw emphasised that none of the properties were Maori land or marked for Treaty settlements.

It had originally been planned to complete the second line in 2017, but the company was now looking at 2025, he added, 14 years after the project began. Actual construction would take 18 months.

"We're now looking to install a generator at Kaitaia, as we've done at Taipa, to provide continuity of supply," Mr Shaw said.

"That's not a long-term solution, but 10 years is too long to wait. A generator will reduce outages to 10 minutes before major maintenance work starts and 10 minutes after completion, rather than a full day, as is the case now."