Local business owner Adrienne Lamb has launched a petition objecting to planned winter power outages in Central.

With some winter temperatures dropping to as low as -8 overnight or only reaching daily highs of a few degrees during June, July and August, households are struggling to keep warm, and businesses just want to keep the lights on. 

Adrienne is urging people to sign online, or visit her Taste Central Otago shop on Letts Gully Rd to sign the petition in person.

Adrienne and Andrew Lamb are the owners of Taste Central Otago, a produce shop and delivery business

The outcome signatories would like is to stop Aurora Energy planning any power outages in Central’s three coldest months (June, July and August). 

At the time of writing the petition had been signed by almost 50 people. 

Adrienne said she started the petition after an unexpected power cut on a snowy day was the last straw for her.

“There has to be some humanity… enough is enough.

“I got quite grumpy with them… it’s been an ongoing thing for the seven years we’ve been here.”

Adrienne needs power to keep her chillers running. 

“As a business we can’t operate without power.

“I wonder why they’re not investing in big grunty generators so people can have power in rural areas.”

Aurora Energy general manager people and customer Sian Sutton said the work programme is planned in advance and where possible they aim to schedule work to minimise the impact on customers. 

“A large part of our essential network renewal can't be undertaken without temporarily interrupting supply to customers to ensure their safety and the safety of our contractors. We always aim to provide notification to customers in advance of the work and at least ten days before the work is scheduled to start.

“When the weather closes in, we review planned work more closely in the days leading up to the job. We will cancel and reschedule planned (and notified) outages if the weather is very bad and the work can be safely deferred. We take into account the number of customers impacted and the safety of our field crews when making any decisions,” Sian said. 

Sian said over the last seven days, Aurora had stopped and deferred over 40% of their planned work for a number of reasons, including but not limited to weather, customer impact and contractor safety. 

The company said deferred jobs have a cost as they need to be replanned, rescheduled and renotified to customers. 

“This pushes out other important work and has a knock-on effect for the following winter as well as our work programme more generally. 

“Ultimately, customers bear these costs and given the current pressures on energy prices we need to strike a balance between completing the work as efficiently and cost effectively as possible, whilst minimising the impact of supply interruptions to our customers, particularly during the colder months.”

Aurora has also published a statement from their chief executive in response to questions from the public about why planned outages are scheduled in winter months. Read the statement here.

The Central App asked Aurora how many customers had been impacted by planned outages so far this winter and this question was not answered.

Sian said Aurora is happy to meet with communities to discuss work in detail and people need to contact them directly to do so. 

Another business owner who has spoken about the difficulty of operating due to power outages is Chatto Creek publican Fiona Sutherland. Read this story here.