A power cut which affected about 10,000 homes in North Otago on Friday night could have been resolved in minutes instead of about 1 hours if Transpower had identified sooner the fault was on its feeder line.
Consumers from Shag Point to the Waitaki River and inland to Duntroon lost their electricity at 5.55pm and the grid was down until 7.20pm.
Transpower yesterday apologised for the fault, but Network Waitaki could have had the supply restored within five to 10 minutes if the grid operator had identified the fault on the feed into its substation.
"We don't like having the power out and apologise for any inconvenience," Transpower's communications manager Rebecca Wilson said in explanation yesterday.
She said Transpower crew had been carrying out maintenance work at its substation feeding Network Waitaki's substation at Weston, from which seven feeder lines supply North Otago.
A transformer tripped, cutting the supply into the Network Waitaki substation.
At the same time, maintenance was being carried out on the back-up supply.
Network Waitaki chief executive Graeme Clark, when contacted by the Otago Daily Times, said initially Network Waitaki was sent "on a red herring".
It was informed by Transpower the loss of the supply was not its (Transpower's) fault, but was within Network Waitaki's substation.
Network Waitaki contractors went out to fix it, brought two feeder lines back on but they tripped out.
Another attempt was made, but when three feeder lines were brought back on, the supply tripped again.
"At that point, Transpower phoned and said the fault was with it," Mr Clarke said.
Once that was identified, electricity was restored in stages within about five minutes.
When asked if Transpower had identified the fault immediately, electricity would have been restored sooner, Mr Clark acknowledged it could have been back on "within minutes".
