Alison Andrew: Transpower CEO on the major power outage in Northland

Nearly 100,000 people spent the day without electricity in Northland after a transmission tower linking the region to the rest of the country collapsed.   

Power was restored to most of the region yesterday evening, but consumers were asked to conserve electricity and warned their hot water cylinders would remain off while the amount of energy getting into the area was limited.   

The tower was undergoing maintenance work when it fell yesterday morning but questions remain on the cause of the collapse.   

The country’s grid provider Transpower issued a grid emergency notice. It was the second such notice issued this year after there was a shortage of generation during a cold snap in May and a solar storm two days later.   

Transpower says they don't yet know why a transmission tower toppled over at Glorit, northwest of Auckland, causing a widespread power outage in Northland.  

NorthPower says supply's been restored to most of the very north of the country while Top Energy's showing 61 customers in Bay of Islands still without.  

But hot water controls are in place, further outages are possible today, and people are urged to conserve power.  

Transpower chief executive Alison Andrew told Mike Hosking that they haven't done a debrief with the crew on-site at the tower.  

She says at the moment they are focussed on restoration, and there will be an investigation, but speculation is unhelpful. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where are we at with the power in the north
after the transmission tower fell over? Of course they got
some of it back yesterday, they were still limiting it
last night. Transport Chief Executive Ellis Andrews, Well, there's Ellison.
Very good morning to you, mate. Just give us the
details and what we know this afternoon we think everything's back.
Is that still the plan.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
At the moment. We're mobilizing equipment we need to site
and we're working hard to get focus on restoration. Yesterday
about eleven o'clock, as you said, we bost a big
transmission tower and lot and took out two circuits we
have which hard to get as much power as we
can back up on the smaller supply line. We apologize
to people who've been impacted by this loss of tower.

(00:40):
We know it's very inconvenient. So we've been focusing all
our efforts to work on how can we get as
much power as possible up through the smaller one hundred
and ten circuit. The two big two hundred and twenty
circuits were taken out by this tower, and now we're
working on how can we restore one of those two
twenty circuits as fast as possible to make sure that
every one of them can get their power back. We

(01:02):
believe we'd have enough power up for most people, but
it will be impacted over those morning and evening peaks.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, don't read, don't read press statements, Elvison, just talk
to me like a human being. When does the power
come back?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Well, we can hard on getting the power back up.
Cruise Immobilized Engineering has been with you over night. I
think we can do it. We believe s put up
some temporary towers in a westering line across earliest would
be absolete this afternoon or th late Saturday. Realistically Sunday morning.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Wowsers, so it's a weekend potentially with trouble.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Over a weekend, the powder land is much lower, so
we believe that we'll be able to supply people over
the over the weekend. We're tricky this morning Friday morning
Friday night peak, but we're going to ask people again
who have been very good, to just manage if they
can not to put on a lot of power over
that peak period six to nine in the morning and

(01:57):
then five to seven at night or five to night
at night, fix to nine in the morning. If people
can just manage load there. We should be able to
get through powers lower over the weekend so people, we
should be able to supply all the people and if
we get the power buying back up and morning we
should be finding the London Morning's peak.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
What have you heard about it falling over? Why does
a tower fall over?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
At the moment we focus on restoration, like, it's actually
really unhelpful to speculate as to why. We will be
doing a full investigation, but that's really important. We keep
all our engineers or our people working hard focused on
restoration and not get diverted at this point on what
went wrong? Please be issued. We will find out what happened.
The tower should not have fallen over, but it's just

(02:39):
not helpful to speculate.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
At the moment bolts were out and water blasting was
going on, it fell over.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
We don't know if things were happening. We will find
out the information and we will make sure we find
what happened and learn from the event. But if they
say we have to focus on restoration, speculating now is unhelpful.
It just diverts resources. It stops the effort from going
onst which is a complex stop.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Some of your people were in the area. Weren't they
working We.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Had a crew that was rooting on the towering routine maintenance.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, right, so they're working on the tower when it
fell over.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
We have people doing routine work up and down the
country every day on towers that should not have fallen over,
and would want to do our best to do a good
investigation at the right time to find out what happened
in an infroment.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Do we need much of an investigation if you've got
a group of people there working on the tower and
the tower falls over. I think we've had that investigation,
and that is they did something to make the tower
fall over, didn't they?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
No? I actually big to defer. It's anomous threat. It's
very tempting, and I can see where you're going to
try and do an investigation on the fly that it's
very dangerous. There are all sorts of reasons and causes
for why things happen, and it's really important that we
understand what happened and get to the root cause so
it can learn and make sure it can't happen again.
I understand thorough investigation.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Of course, and now I understand that, but I'm looking
at the tower I'm looking at the whole. You know
that we're the bolts are and the bolts aren't there anymore,
and it's lying on its side, and we've ruled out
the weather. Have you ruled out the weather?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
By the way, we don't believe the weather was the pause.
And we've also inspected towers on other sides of that,
and that's sure of the bay are safe for restoration.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
But yes, it's easy to speculate, and there will be
some people who are very intrigued about what happened, but
we will do a thorough investigation. But this is actually
really important. We don't divert people away, distract them. There
maybe safety issues. We've got to focus on getting the
poor people. As an orphant who don't have power, it's
really important to get powered back to them as soon

(04:35):
as possible.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Safety quite right, If there was a crew on the
site and they watched the tower fall over, they would
have a pretty good indication as to what happened there.
What have they said to you?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
We haven't done a deep effort, The proms aren't yet.
We've been focused on restoration.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
No one's asked a question like what the hell happened?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm sure. I'm sure they have been questions. Answer, but
I say, well.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Who would have asked those questions?

Speaker 2 (04:59):
MI?

Speaker 1 (05:00):
The service providers doing the work, and you have no
interest in knowing what happened.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Of course, we have an enormous interest in knowing what happened.
But having been through a number of these serious incidents,
it's really important that you focus on efforts on festival,
making sure that the science is safe, and they'll inhert
that you can secure in side, and they're restoring power
supply as soon as possible. We will be collecting evidence,
of course, but investigations take time. That's really important we

(05:26):
get to the root cause and really understand the fact
is you can't do that overnight, and you certainly don't
do it on the trive that if you did. If
you did, if it is dangerous speculation and you may
not find the root cause and you distract from what
is a really important restoration.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Is okay, that's fine. If you find what has been
speculated is true. In other words, were people working on
a tower in the tower for all over? What are
you going to do about that?

Speaker 2 (05:53):
We'll find the root cause, understand what happened, what could
have causes that should not happen. What of our controls,
what have our process which just what things happened that
caused that? And then what do we learn from that?
And then we'll take some actions. But there's all sorts
of reasons. I don't want to speculate them on why
these things can happen. It's what do we understand, what
control failed and therefore what can we learn from that?

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Okay, appreciate you time very much. A loos and Andrew who
is the Transport Chief Executive six eight to seven. For
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