Close to 1,500 homes and businesses will be without power on Wednesday December 1 due to planned line maintenance.

Aurora Energy, which owns and manages the local electricity distribution network, said it has a large programme of work scheduled for the line which supplies Albert Town, Camphill Road, Hāwea Flat, and Makarora.

The work will leave these areas without a power supply from 8am to 6pm.

“This work will improve the safety and reliability of the power supply,” Aurora Energy work programming and delivery general manager Mark Pratt said.

Work includes pole replacement, maintenance on zone substations and equipment, and installation of new switching. 

Aurora said it has bundled the work into one day to minimise disruptions to its customers, and it will have multiple crews working across various sites to complete the work in the allocated time.

“We acknowledge a larger customer base than usual will have their power turned off, and for a longer day than usually planned,” Mark said.

“By bundling our work programmes by area, we can reduce the number of planned outages for our customers.”

Mark said Aurora will be providing support to the community to keep some services and institutions operating during the outage. This includes Hāwea Flat School and the Albert Town commercial area.

“We have organised for Lake Hāwea Community Centre to be generated on this day,” Mark said. 

The Community Centre will have toilets open during the outage and provide access to hot water, storage for food and medicine, and provide WIFI and phone charging facilities.

The Community Centre will sell lunch packs starting from five dollars from 12noon-2pm.

“We will also be generating the Makarora Country Café so it will be open from 8.30am – 4.30pm,” Mark said.

If work cannot be undertaken on Wednesday December 1 then a backup day has been scheduled for Thursday December 2. Customers will receive a power outage notification from their retailers for this day (December 2). This notification can be disregarded if the power outage goes ahead on December 1.

Those affected will be notified by their electricity retailer in advance.

To check on planned electricity outages click here.

PHOTO: Supplied