The number of customers without power continues to come down, as PowerNet is supported by crews from around the country to repair damage from last week’s storm.

Chief Executive Paul Blue said as at 12pm on Wednesday 29 October, approximately 3,400 customers in Southland and 1,674 customers in Otago remain without power.

“The support provided by our industry peers has been incredible. We are grateful for their help repairing the extensive damage our networks have suffered.

“Our suppliers and contractor partners are also playing a huge part, with supplies of equipment being sourced from throughout New Zealand and freighted urgently to us.

“We are now into day seven of the response and we appreciate this has been a long time for those still without power.

“Our focus has been on ensuring critical services are powered, large urban areas and the region’s dairy farms.

“Some of the areas still to be restored do have extensive damage, but we also know there are likely to be many individual properties who have suffered more localised damaged and are still without power. Until this stage, we have asked them to be patient and not report these individual issues.”

We now have a plan to manage these and are asking people to report if they are in an area which is generally restored and their neighbours have power, but they don’t.

Due to the volume, our customers are urged to use the online form wherever possible as this will reduce pressure on our call centre and minimise waiting times. You can find the online form at www.powernet.co.nz/powerout

“This will allow us to better understand and start working through these more localised outages, but we will not be able to provide an estimate on when we will get someone out to you yet. Please don’t call asking for an update, as this will put undue pressure on our call centre, which we need to have available for emergency situations.”

Mr Blue said while the restoration of power throughout Otago and Southland is tracking well, the response is likely to have a long tail.

“We’ve largely reconnected our biggest areas of customers, but we have some very complex and widespread issues affecting many of those remaining. We will have a much better understanding by Friday of exactly how long those people can expect to wait for their power to be restored.”

By the Numbers as at 12pm 29/10

The Power Company Limited network (Southland)
Total Customers: 38,200
Customers without power: 3,400

OtagoNet network (South Otago)
Total Customers: 15,700
Customers without power: 1,674

Please note these numbers will change as we undertake repairs and identify faults on the network.