The Chatto Creek Tavern owner said her power supply concerns were not addressed by a recent community meeting set up by Aurora Energy. 

Fiona Sutherland said Aurora are 'the banes of everyone’s lives' at the moment.

The tavern had consistent unplanned power outages in the 2020 Christmas period when Fiona first moved down.

She spend around $5,000 on a generator to overcome the issue back then.

“Our power has recently become unreliable again…

“We might have enough power coming in to turn on a couple of the taverns lights but nothing else.”

Fiona said they need reliable power to set the tavern up for the days’ business. 

She’s been frustrated by an instance when she has called the customer service line and been told that as a couple of lights are working it’s not deemed an outage. 

“[Aurora] don’t seem to understand that we need power for water,” Fiona said.

The customer service phone line plays an automated answer message before you can talk to an operator.

“I’ve timed it… it requires 48 seconds of listening before you get connected to an operator. It winds me up....  I’ve had to call four times a day sometimes.”

Fiona recently attended an Aurora meeting for the community in Omakau.

“Only six people attended due to the time it was held.

“The meeting was focused “how we got here” with no solutions given, just a lot of maybes.”

“There was no light at the end of the tunnel. I was told that the only way to have a reliable source of power was to buy another generator.”

Fiona said the second generator would cost her business around $12,500 as the one previously purchased isn’t big enough to run the pub.

"We haven't had as many power cuts recently... there was one over a weekend where we couldn't run eftpos and had to give out our bank account number... and rely on customers putting their money in.

A slide from the meeting showed more than 30% of the faults on the Omakau network were unknown.

This category encompassed vegetation, weather, possible wildlife or other intermittent unknown causes.

Fiona said each outage with an unknown cause meant a line repair person had to physically drive the length of the line which could result in around a 4-5 hour delay before turning the power back on.

"We were told they're [Aurora] are putting in a new customer service team to text us when there is a power outage."

The Chatto Creek Tavern and others who live and work rurally do not have cell phone service so this is of no use to Fiona.

Fiona said she was also worried for 'the little guy' along with local businesses.

She said one of her employees lives rurally and had been hit by an unplanned outage. The timing was particularly unfortunate as the employee was isolating and miserable with covid-19 and couldn't get any water for a coffee or a shower, as power was needed to run their pump. In this instance the power did not come back on until 4.30pm.

Aurora Customer and engagement manager Lisa Gloag said a customer letter was sent to Omakau residents, dated April 5, outlining the investment Aurora Energy is making in the area.

Chief executive Richard Fletcher said in the letter the company was looking at progressing enhanced overhead line inspections, improving the Alexandra and Omakau link and a new line to Ida Valley.

"However, it's important to remember we can't guarantee a 100% reliable supply with no outages and that's the same for every electricity network in the country," Richard wrote.

In a media statement Lisa said Aurora will be holding a series of public drop in meetings about the future work on the electricity distribution network throughout Otago between now and 2026.

Meetings will be at the end of the month and will contain information relevant to each community and experts will be able on hand to answer questions.

Alexandra's meeting is on Tuesday May 24 (4-6pm) at Alexandra Community House.

Lisa said they were also happy to hold more community meetings in Omakau.

"[We] intend to continue updating the community about progress with our investment plans."

Have you been impacted by unplanned power outages? Share your story: [email protected]