NetCon completes essential work
With people under lockdown, South Canterbury electricity network contractor NetCon found it easier to do vital maintenance work.
‘‘Throughout level 4, we were primarily focused on faults work, trees through lines and general wear and tear work,’’ the company’s delivery manager George Ritchie told Stuff.
‘‘We also only did reconnects during that period. No-one was disconnected.’’
Ritchie said the those tasks hadn’t kept them particularly busy, allowing other maintenance work to be undertaken for the essential service.
‘‘There was the normal fault activity but the weather was kind to us and there were far fewer vehicles on the roads, which meant there were far fewer car versus poles, which is common, or trucks through lines incidents.’’
Ritchie said that had allowed them to work on maintenance such as ‘‘sorting out lighting, making sure the lights came on’’.
Another key project undertaken was essential work on distribution boxes known as ‘‘Lucy boxes’’ in central Timaru.
‘‘We got through quite a good programme of them so that has been great for us to do that.
‘‘We did four of them over a twoweek period.’’
Ritchie explained each one took about three or four days from the planning stage to the actual execution of the job and that it was made much easier through lockdowns because there was so little vehicle and pedestrian traffic.
‘‘There was also not the same requirements to co-ordinate with customers.’’
During level 4, all staff worked from home and while there was some easing during level 3, staff all had strict requirements in distancing and wearing appropriate protection gear when required to work closer together, such as in aerial buckets or live wire work.
‘‘It has to be worked on a site by site basis. While we are pretty much back to normal, though it will probably be June when we are
‘‘There was the normal fault activity but the weather was kind to us and there were far fewer vehicles on the roads, which meant there were far fewer car versus poles ’’
George Ritchie
fully back up to speed.’’
Currently, the company is continuing its work on a 10-year assets programme for Alpine Energy and Ritchie said there were places like Clandeboye that required extra attention at this time of the year in the dairying industry.
‘‘Everyone in NetCon is, however, mindful that they were generally privileged to be in the situation of being mostly busy [during lockdown], which was not the experience for many.’’