Mark Ryall: Transpower Executive General Manager of Grid Delivery gives the latest updates on extreme weather warnings

Extreme winds are battering Wellington, Wairapa and the South Island. 

Winds of up to 150km/h are expected today as red strong wind warnings are in place for much of the South Island's eastern regions and southern parts of the North Island. 

More than 100 flights have been cancelled, along with some of the planned strikes in tehe affected areas.  

Transpower Executive General Manager of Grid Delivery Mark Ryall told Kerre Woodham that three the Canterbury to Nelson power lines 'trip out' due to the extreme weather. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to The carry Wood, a morning's podcast from
news Talks b.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Join Now by Mark Ryle, Transparwer, executive general manager of
grid Delivery. Mark, Good morning to you.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
The morning, Cary.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
How are you doing with your power outages across the
affected network?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Firstly, just apologize to all the consumers affected. Obviously, we
try really hard to avoid these things happening and work
really hard when they do to restore. So apologize front yere,
not on the morning you want when you come in
the office, but we are actively working with the distribution
businesses to restore all the all the load. At the moment.

(00:43):
That process does take time and will probably continue to
occur over the next couple of hours. Given the severe
weather event and the winds we've seen. There may also
be damage and the distribution network, so some people may
take longer because of that course, But from the transper
network perspective, you will work to make all those sites
that are still out available over next like I say,
two hours.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
How do you restore them? I think people understand that
in these dreadful, deadly winds, you know, with so many
trees coming down and possibly you know, strong gusts, how
do you restore power lines in this kind of weather.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeat, Yes we have. We've got a context with three
circuits that travel sort of from the Canterbury region up
to the Nelson top of the South Island and then
power comes back down through the West coast. Those three
circuits are robust, any one of them can handle the load. Unfortunately,
we've had all three of those circuits trip out on
the early hour this morning or this morning through seven

(01:41):
forty five due to the weather event going through in
an area sort of west and north inland of Kaikoura.
So we basically manage the whole system. We have a
computer system constantly monitoring everything as you can imagine live
control rooms. So we've been able to restore two of
those circuits back into service and we have power through
to our substation at Kickawa, and we're now working the distribution.

(02:05):
North Canterbury has been restored and we're now working with
the distribution companies to continue that process of restoring North.
You do have to balance load to demand and supply
otherwise if things get out of step, things could trip
out again. So as a slow process. If unfortunately we
can't just whack a switch and turn everything back on immediately.
We'd love to be able to do that and we

(02:26):
just need to manage that risk. So we've got teams
working on that. Now.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Do you know how many households businesses are affected?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yeah, the numbers we had around about eighty thousand at
the start of the artists. That number will be progressively
reducing as we go with. I said, I think we've
got North Canterbury unrestored least through ound network, and I
know we've got power through the Stoke in the Tasman region.
I've got a separate team working on getting power further
north up the West coast. So those numbers will drop

(02:55):
fairly quickly, but it can pack a while. The distribution
companies auto also to switch through their networks to all
their feeders, so that process is ongoing. In fact, we've
got two circuits back in as good news. We've got
condundancy there, but we are still in a severe wind
event and that wind moves further south, so we'll be
working really hard to stay in front of it and

(03:16):
hopefully nothing but this will happen again. But there is
that risk, and there obviously could also be damage and
the distribution networks that might affect consumers.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
What would you recommend people do? Close the shop for
the day, settle in and prepare for a day without power.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
But like I said, I'm hopeful that what we're doing
at the moment is restoring power in the next couple
of hours, which should be kod good. We've got two
of the three circuits pickin and we're patrolling the third,
so that that is a good, good situation to be in. It.
We can't guarantee that whether one affect us again, no,
but expect the worst and he'll be one. Yes, in

(03:53):
a sort of whether there's always a risk of power
systems unfortunate when you get extreme wed level winds, Branches, trees,
all sorts of things can affect and be blown into
and around and through circuits.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well, I appreciate the work that you're doing and I
thank you very much for the update. How do you
recommend that people stay in touch? Will you be providing updates?

Speaker 3 (04:14):
So yeah, our Transpower Facebook page will be updated by
our comms team, So anyone who is at least without
power at this point have a look there. That'll give
us an update on how we're connecting the distribution businesses.
If we say the substation that you're close to is
backed live and you still don't have power, then it'll
have look at your dB or follow your DB's website
because they'll sort of keep updates from there. And we

(04:38):
really apologize to consumers. We work really hard to avoid
these things. We can so out make sure the networks robust,
but you significant weather has gone through that location and
affected three circuits, which is rare and very unfortunate.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
I don't think you have to apologize.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I don't think there's much but I know, I know
we're relying. I know we rely on power. It's important,
it's very good whenever that's in never let's impacted. It
impacts consumers, but I can assure you were working really
hard to minimize that impact.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
I can hear that. Thank you very much for your time.
Mark rail Transparer, executive general manager of Good Delivery, News
Talk said been.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
News Talks at b from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio