Darryn Fisher: North Chamber CEO on the impact of the Northland power outage on businesses

A Northland business leader says the large power outage will significantly impact business.  

Widespread power outages began yesterday morning when a transmission tower toppled at Glorit, northwest of Auckland. 

NorthPower says supply has since been restored to the majority of Northland. 

Top Energy is showing 61 customers in Bay of Islands still without but warns there's potential for further outages as they manage load restrictions.  

North Chamber chief executive Darryn Fisher told Mike Hosking that the business impact isn't yet known, but he expects it'll be significant with economic head winds already at play. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How about the power in Northland or lack of it?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Day?

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Transpower issued the grid emergency. They're looking into why transmission
towers fall over. Full restoration will take until at least
this afternoon, they say. Now Dan Fish's with North Chamber,
he's the boss of North Chambers with.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Us, Darren morning, Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
How's it not at all? How's it gone overnight? Do
you know?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, it's been a little fragile. There's still still many
parts of the region who are no longer with power,
particularly those large power users in CBD areas, and as
I understood late last night, many rural areas still without
power as well.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
So at least you'll get it for the weekend, which
I suppose is something. What was that? Do you have
any sort of read on the business effect? How many
doors had to get closed and how much money was lost?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I'm told at the stage in terms of dollar
value losses, but it's going to be significant. I mean
we already know it's some economic kidwins at play and
things aren't looking good. I mean just liquidations here on year.
We found yesterday we're up fifty percent here on year,
so that's a pretty concerning.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
So those liquidations you talk of, that's for Northland or
for the whole country, because those I saw some numbers,
but they were for the whole country, not Northland.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, whole country. But we're pretty consistent in regards to
those figures here in.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Northold Road hasn't helped, of course, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
The fragility of our infrastructure is a real concern.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I think how much of a talking point is that
because as we were talking to somebody yesterday, and of
course the road's opening from Marto Riki, which is something
I guess, but between that and you know, this thing
falling over, I mean you've got to be sitting there thinking, God,
how bad does it have to get?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, I mean I spoke to some of our more
regional business associations yesterday and how they described it as
if you know, this is not the knockout blow for
a lot of small businesses that certainly a standing eight
count you know, it could be very well one of
the things that just keep piling on top of some
of these small employers.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
You know, what are you hearing about here? And there's
a couple of stories floating around. Did you see the
picture of the transmission tower that had fallen over. The
plate at the bottom looked fine, and there's a number
of stories floating about there were water blasting bolts, too
much rust, the bolts gave way, the thing fell over.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure of what the cause is
as yet. I think there's an investigation and all over well,
I can say we've been quite pleased with the urgency
in which things have got back on track. I mean,
North Power and Top Energy. You've done a fantastic job
reorganizing things to get as much of the residential people

(02:34):
back up and running, which is really important for families
and schools in areas that you need to stay on
over and I can imagine the loss of stock with
small businesses, cafes, and they would be really feeling.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
It this morning exactly So hopefully done. But do you
know if it's temporary or permanent, this what they're going
to do today? Are they going to put the tower
back up or are they going to use a crane
or a truck or whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah. I did see some reports that there's a multiple
different solutions been sought at the moment, but I think
whatever it is, it's going to be a relative band
aid solution. For the time being until something more permanent
is put in place. I don't think the permanent solution
is going to happen quickly.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Okay, the weather wasn't a thing, was it. I mean,
it was a bit blowy, and you had the rain
and all that, But that wouldn't have blown a tower over,
would it.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I wouldn't think so. No, But I mean the North
was severely hammered with weather night before, so feel for
those people who were battling that on top of power
outages that.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
The next day wet end in the dark. Darren, go
well this weekend. I appreciate it very much, Darren Fish
and North Chamber. See for more from News Talks' b
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