Report praises electricity distribution sector’s handling of cyclone
Preparations of electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) to respond to major weather events have been endorsed by the independent Electricity Distribution Sector Cyclone Gabrielle Review produced by consultants Energia.
Nonetheless, the 45-page report has also highlighted key strategic learnings for EDBs – which are commonly known as power lines companies – to best mitigate future risk and improve preparations in light of climate change.
The review was launched in an Electricity Networks Aotearoa (ENA)-hosted webinar on 9 October, which featured presentations by Richard Krogh, managing director of Energia, and Jason Larkin, GM commercial and Centralines, Unison.
“Overall we consider that the work by impacted EDBs on identifying hazards, understanding vulnerabilities, and progressing their mitigation has been undertaken appropriately up to this point,” stated the review.
“However, the risks posed by hazards would appear to be increasing, likely due to climate change. In our opinion, this may necessitate an acceleration of some assessment and mitigation work to maintain or improve resilience.”
The review considered that impacted EDBs have appropriate emergency management plans that can respond to weather events.
“We also believe that all impacted EDBs took the watches and warnings seriously and prepared accordingly. Only with hindsight could we be critical of the preparation efforts.”
It described EDBs as having overall done “an appropriate job” of restoring supply and “competently responded” to a wide range of issues.
“We believe there are incremental improvements that can be made that will enhance restoration and improvement communication with customers.”
The review noted that, at its peak, the cyclone caused about 240,000 outages – 11% of connections in New Zealand. Of these disruptions, of which the longest durations occurred in the Hawke’s Bay and Far North regions, the single-largest contributor was out-of-zone trees interrupting 67,000 customers (ENA is actively campaigning for appropriate changes to current tree regulations as per this submission currently before the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment).
A combination of strategies was recommended to improve the electricity distribution sector’s resilience, with a particular focus on risk reduction.
These observations included:
- Reducing network risk and exposure to out-of-zone trees reduces the number of customers lost.
- Continuous improvement in resources and access reduces the length of the outages tail.
- Community hubs will provide an important fall-back in the meantime.
A copy of the full report, webinar and other resources can be accessed here.
