Aurora Energy operations and network performance general manager Matt Settle said the company had disabled some automatic machinery across its network to reduce the risk of faults sparking wildfires.
Automatic reclosers in Central Otago and the Southern Lakes had been turned off after Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) declared a prohibited fire season in the area, he said.
"Reclosers are circuit breakers that can automatically trip if a fault has been detected and are helpful for momentary faults such as a tree branch brushing a power line," Mr Settle said.
They could be controlled remotely — reducing the outage area — but could also create sparks if the network was damaged during the fault.
"When we disable the reclosers, our fault crews need to manually check the lines to make sure everything is safe before we can turn the power back on," he said.
"How long this takes depends on where the fault is on our network and how long it takes our crews to patrol the lines.
"We know it’s a trade-off between getting power restored faster and the risk of fire — and we will always put safety first."
Aurora had been working with Fenz for many years to reduce fire risk this way and customers should expect "business as usual", Mr Settle said.
Automatic reclosers were still operating in the Dunedin network as there were, at present, no fire restrictions.
Mr Settle said property owners could reduce fire risk by keeping vegetation on their property well clear of power lines and clearing any combustible materials such as vegetation and hay bales from under power lines.
