Commissioning of the replacement switchboard panel at Kaikohe Substation has been completed successfully and operating conditions are now back to normal.
Top Energy Chief Executive Russell Shaw said restoring resilience after the 6 November equipment failure has been the company’s focus throughout the month.
“Our teams have worked steadily to repair the damage at Kaikohe and bring a replacement panel provided by Ngāwhā Generation Ltd into service,” Mr Shaw said.
Mr Shaw said the damaged equipment has been sent to the manufacturer for detailed analysis. The results will inform Top Energy’s full investigation and material provided to the Commerce Commission.
“We understand these outages may have shaken the confi dence of some in the community about the reliability of the electricity network, and we are very sorry about that. But I want to provide assurance that the network is reliable, and we have invested signifi cantly in recent years.”
Mr Shaw said following the Kaikohe Substation outage, the company is checking other similar substations on the network.
“To add extra resilience, the intention is to put connection points for diesel generators at each of our zone substations over the next 12 to 18 months.
“If a similar major event occurred, these connections would allow us to deploy temporary diesel generation across the network in days, not weeks,” Mr Shaw said.
For more information contact: Philippa White, 021 2418740
Top Energy, which is owned by the people of the Far North, is committed to providing a reliable and resilient electricity network which keeps abreast of evolving technologies such as localised generation, solar power, and microgrids. Over the last decade its $210 million investment programme has involved substantial improvements to the network which now has an asset value of $395 million – up from $128 million when the programme started in 2009. Over the next decade, the Group will invest a further $365 million to ensure our customers continue to receive a high quality and secure supply of power through local generation and a resilient network.
