At its peak, more than 50,000 electricity company customers across both regions were without power last night, the majority of those ranging across Auckland.
Energy company Vector said at the height of the outages, about 24,000, or 4 per cent, of its Auckland customer base were without power.
“[It] was over a very short time when it was unsafe for our crews to be out responding. All outages have been caused by fallen trees and vegetation which makes it tricky to repair,” a spokesperson said.
Vector was unable to provide the total number of properties affected since yesterday.
As of 3pm today, Vector said the majority of customers had their power restored but some areas were still without it, the majority being in the northern and western areas of Auckland.
“A large number of these have repair plans in place and affected customers can see progress updates on our outage centre. We are also contacting customers directly via text or email to update them where possible.”
Vector's outage map still shows mass outages in western and northern parts of Auckland at 6.30pm on Thursday evening. Photo / Vector
Residents across Auckland were without power overnight and into Thursday evening, with one in Takapuna saying it was a “right pain”.
A block of flats in the North Shore suburb lost its power about 11pm on Wednesday and by 6pm it had not been resolved.
Vector said crews would work through tonight to safely restore power for customers.
“We expect the vast majority will be back on tonight, providing there are no complications.”
At 6.30pm tonight, Vector’s outage map still showed mass outages in western and northern parts of Auckland.
Further south, Counties Energy had restored power to over 4000 properties by 3pm.
Shortly after 3pm, over 200 properties remained without power.
Counties Energy's power outage maps shows dozens of homes in south Auckland and Waikato have no power this evening.
“If you are without power currently, we recommend that you make alternative dinner plans and consider staying with friends or family tonight,” a notice posted on the power supplier’s website said.
In Waikato, about 22,000 customers were impacted by power outages and thousands remained without it this evening.
“We’ve added to the temporary generators we stood up in Raglan last night and we now have three larger generators providing power to the majority of customers in the township,” said WEL services general manager, George Pirie.
Residents in Raglan have been asked to conserve power “where at all possible”.
Raglan has been the worst-hit town in the Waikato region for power outages, with almost 1500 properties still affected.
“Our fault identification work is ongoing and we are making progress. We have network assets in remote places in Raglan and the other pockets of our network that are still without power. We are using helicopters and drones to help with this task, along with on-the-ground crews and specialised test equipment to pinpoint the causes of faults and rectify them.
“We are working extremely hard to get the power back on for everyone still impacted. We’ve got all available resource working on this and we’ve called in contractor resource to help with the amount of damage we’re needing to repair,” Pirie said.
Around 2500 properties remained without power at 4pm.
Benjamin Plummer is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He has worked for the Herald since 2022.
