Power outages cost businesses

A Dunedin restaurant owner is fed up after being forced to turn away customers during a spate of power cuts which have cost his and neighbouring businesses tens of thousands of dollars.

Aurora Energy has apologised to the businesses and says the unplanned outages are because of strong wind or equipment failures.

Darren Bezett, one of the owners of the Village Green Cafe & Bar, at Sunnyvale, said during one of the recent outages they lost five tables of customers, each with between six and 12 people.

They were able to finish serving a large table of 30 customers but were not able to offer them coffee or dessert, which was expected from that group.

"And then we had other walk-ins we just had to turn away," Mr Bezett said.

"Obviously, with the kitchen down, no hot water, cleanliness, hygiene and all the rest of it," he said.

Mr Bezett and co-owner Nicola Chisholm said there had been about six outages since the start of October.

The last three all came six days apart, until last Thursday.

He said it was likely they had lost thousands of dollars in revenue, as well as wages lost by staff.

They also had to throw food out if it was being prepared during the day and the power went out in the afternoon or evening.

The restaurant’s electronics, such as the till and chillers, were at risk of blowing if they were not turned off at the wall before power was restored after an outage.

Mr Bezett said he had spoken to Fulton Hogan staff, who said they had had outages at the same time, disrupting their Fairfield head office, where there are fuel pumps, office buildings and workshops.

Tuapeka Gold Print operations manager Tim Hannagan said the company’s Fairfield factory was forced to stop production when the power was cut.

That could cost Tuapeka Gold Print up to $20,000 an hour.

"It’s quite frustrating. It impacts our workflow and stuff like that."

All lines in the factory stopped for whatever length of time the power cut lasted — the most recent one was an hour and a-half, Mr Hannagan said.

Because the cuts had been so frequent, staff were now well versed in focusing on other activities, such as cleaning and maintenance.

They had received no clear explanation from Aurora for the power cuts.

Fairfield School was also affected by the power cuts but they were manageable, one worker there said.

Aurora’s general manager of customer and engagement, Sian Sutton, apologised for the outages and said most of them were out of the company’s control because of strong wind.

She said some of the outages were due to equipment failure and Aurora was working to "better understand" those.