More than 500 Aurora Energy customers in Alexandra can breathe a sigh of relief as a day-long planned power outage today (Monday July 11) has been cancelled due to weather and the school holidays.

Aurora Energy sent customers an email last week (July 5) explaining there are a number of other upcoming outages affecting a smaller number of clients, and cancelling Monday’s outage means customers should only be without power once.

In the statement, the customer experience team said where it is possible to defer work, they aim to avoid winter months when scheduling planned outages that will result in power being out for customers. 

“This is not always possible if the work is safety related or considered essential to maintain a secure supply of electricity to customers.

“While we complete the final scheduling of our work five weeks in advance, we always review weather conditions on the day. We have been looking at the extended forecast and given it’s the school holidays…we will be cancelling the planned outage.”

Other power outages are planned this week for some clients in Alexandra and Cromwell, check if you’re affected here: The Central App Reports > Power outages

Aurora Energy said they will continue to monitor the weather this week. The large outage has not been rescheduled at this time. 

Aurora is spending $563 million to upgrade the electricity network in Otago, in part to catch up with past under-investment. 

A large part of the investment is maintenance and equipment renewal to ensure the network is safe and reliable and can supply power when people need it.