“Prepare for More Disruptions”: Power Repairs Ongoing After Cyclone Vaianu

Communities across the region are being urged to prepare for ongoing disruptions as power crews work to restore electricity following extensive damage from Cyclone Vaianu.

Horizon Energy Group Chief Executive Ajay Anand acknowledged the scale of the situation and the frustration many residents are feeling after several days without power.

He emphasised that while progress is being made, the complexity of the damage means restoration will take time.

Anand said the cyclone has caused significant and widespread infrastructure damage.

“The cyclone has affected the entire network. The damage to the physical infrastructure is actually quite extensive due to vegetation-related faults. We’ve got multiple poles down, we’ve got multiple conductors down, and we’ve suffered quite a lot of damage in most of the areas that we’re operating in,” he said.

Crews have been working under challenging conditions, including cutting access tracks and even preparing helicopter landing zones to reach damaged sites.

“We’ve had personnel effectively cutting tracks to allow us to take our plant and equipment to the various sites for us to effect repairs to the extent that we’re equally cutting landing pads for helicopters so that we can fly plant and equipment in.”

At the peak of the storm, the impact was severe.

“At the height of the storm, we lost over 10,000 customers, and we lost the 110 kV line into Ōpōtiki and Waiotahe, which resulted in the total loss of the coast,” said Anand.

Although major supply has since been restored to key areas, the full extent of damage only became clear afterwards.

“Once the electricity was restored to Ōpōtiki and the coast, it is only then we started to get visibility of what the extent of the damage was to our network as customers began to call in.”

The distribution of the known faults across the network. IMAGE // Horizon Networks

Restoration efforts are being carried out in stages, prioritising major infrastructure first.

“So once we get that big pipe built back up, then we can go and start looking at the individual outages,” Anand explained.

He said this structured approach is necessary given the scale of the work.

“We have in excess of 400 outages as we speak across the network… This is a very large geographic area that’s been affected, and we need to plan and coordinate our response accordingly.”

Many residents are asking when power will be fully restored, but Anand said there are no guarantees.

“This is a very difficult question for us to answer at this point in time,” he said.

Anand warns residents that with the nature and severity of these works, power may still be out heading into the weekend.

Residents are being encouraged to prepare accordingly.

“We would encourage you to make alternative arrangements and to not rely on the fact that electricity will be coming back on any time soon,” he said.

Even areas that regain power may experience temporary interruptions as repairs continue.

“Customers will continue to experience intermittent outages. And that is unfortunately the only way we can get you connected.”

Anand acknowledged growing frustration among residents but urged people to remain respectful toward crews.

“We understand that the delays in restoration is causing frustrations within our community. It is only natural. But abusing and threatening our staff is not the answer.”

He stressed that such behaviour can actually slow progress.

“Our staff have been advised to stop work and to report matter to the police, which unfortunately will delay restoration efforts.”

Instead, he encouraged community support.

“As you drive past our teams today, please wave out. Give them the thumbs up. It means a lot to our staff who are here to serve the community they proudly call home.”

Adding to the challenges, Anand reported incidents of copper theft from infrastructure.

“We are very dismayed and disappointed that that is happening. It is an opportunistic sort of – people have taken an opportunistic approach to this.”

These actions are directly impacting restoration timelines.

“It is having a detrimental impact on our restoration efforts as we are having to now fix and replace stolen copper ahead of us actually completing the restoration works,” he said.

“We would urge these perpetrators to refrain from doing this as they’re not only endangering themselves but our staff and members of the public. It is simply not worth it.”

With further adverse weather forecast, residents are being urged to prepare for additional disruptions.

“We would encourage you to effectively, you know, stock up on food, water, and to effectively have, you know, emergency supplies ready,” said Anand.

He cautioned that new faults could emerge.

“There is every likelihood that there will be new faults that will emerge over the weekend.”

While long-term resilience planning is underway, Anand acknowledged that extreme events remain difficult to fully mitigate.

“No amount of resilience planning is going to be able to deal with all eventualities.”

For now, the focus remains on restoring power as quickly and safely as possible.

“We are endeavouring to get as many people as we can back on before the weekend, but we cannot provide you with any assurances or guarantees that supplies to everyone will be restored.”