An investigation is underway following two recent widespread power outages across parts of Central Otago. 

The latest unplanned power outage left a large area of Central Otago in the dark last night, affecting more than 7900 customers - the second widespread outage in four days.

Last night’s outage affected residents in Alexandra, Clyde, the Teviot Valley, Chatto Creek, Omakau, the Ida Valley and Maniototo. 

The power cut happened about 11.45pm on Tuesday and was restored by about 6.30am today.

Aurora Energy general manager operations and network performance Matt Settle said the outage occurred when both the main lines that feed the Central Otago network from the Clyde grid exit point, tripped.

“Our 24/7 fault crew patrolled the lines and no obvious fault was found, however our internal protection systems were activated and we are looking into why this occurred.”

He said as part of the investigation, there would also be a request of records from Transpower.

A specialist team has been set up to undertake a systematic review of the operational records and logs.

Aurora Energy hopes to have more information available later next week, which will be shared on its website, including whether there is any link to the unplanned outage last week that impacted the same area.

“We thank our customers for their patience and reassure them we are looking into the reasons for the recent widespread outages.”

Last week’s outage, which happened on Friday late morning, affected almost 8000 customers, which extended from Clyde to Ettrick and Lauder Flat.

There are two main power lines that feed into those areas from the Clyde Grid Exit Point, where power is taken from the national grid.

One of those was out of service for planned maintenance at the request of Transpower.

However, the second line tripped, which caused Friday’s outage to the region.

Keep up to date on power outages by clicking on The Central App’s power outages button.

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