Alpine explains Waimate outages
Lines company Alpine Energy does not expect further disruptions to Waimate’s power supply after the South Canterbury township recorded five power outages in 13 days.
The outages, which included three on January 17, affected between 46 and 1900 customers.
Answers were sought from the company after a disgruntled reader emailed The Timaru Herald.
The question was put asking: ‘‘Can you please get a straight answer out of Alpine Energy about why Waimate’s network is suddenly unable to stay up for more than a few days at a time, and how much more disruption we can expect before it’s fit for purpose again?’’.
While an Alpine Energy spokesperson could not give much detail as to what caused the outages, it said it did not have too much concern as ‘‘the causes have been located and fully repaired’’.
‘‘At this stage we are not expecting any further disruptions,’’ the spokesperson said.
The outages occurred on January 9, January 17 and January 21.
Alpine Energy listed the faults as: ■ January 9, at 10.07pm, restored at 4am, whole Waimate township, 1900 customers, fault not found at the time, further investigations done including the use of drones and analysis.
■ January 17 at 10am, restored at 11.30am, whole township, 1900 customers, fault – broken insulator that could not be located for the first outage.
■ January 17, 40 customers affected while repairing – only streets with that section affected, out for less than 15 minutes as we had our people there and all fully restored.
■ January 17, 6.55pm and restored at 8.30pm, second insulator found and repaired, 100 customers affected once again within the streets where work was being done.
■ January 21, 8.37pm, restored at 10.15pm, 46 customers, Opie Street, cause PG clamps on LV released, transient intermittent fault.