All power has been restored in Wellington, after a mass outage caused headaches for businesses in the central city and western suburbs.
The Wellington power outage has shut businesses, including Countdown. Photo: RNZ/Charlie Dreaver
More than 12,500 customers were hit by the outage, including Parliament and Treasury, but it was restored just after 3.15pm.
Transpower chief executive Alison Andrew said the outage was caused by a fault in a piece of equipment.
"We've worked out there was a section that joined to parts of the supply into Wilton that had a fault, so about half past 1 we got crew into wilton who identified the fault, she said.
Ms Andrew said they managed to restore the power around 2.30pm, but then it was up to Wellington Electricity to make the connections.
She apologised to all those inconvenienced and said they would be looking at how to prevent this from happening again.
Some businesses in the CBD and in the west of the city closed early.
And some Twitter users were saying they were sent home early from work and some business, like Countdown, were shut during the outage.
In Karori, Tera Woodard-Lehman said she was at home in the middle of a conference call when the electricty went out.
"I was in the middle of a (job) interview on my computer and everything shut down and the wifi-went off, so it was really bad timing for me," she laughed.
Ms Woodard-Lehman had sought refuge at the Karori Library, because her security alarm kept beeping due to the cut and her landlord advised it would not stop until the power was back on.
Wellington Electricity have advised ETA for power is three hours https://t.co/LRAb4xbaEd https://t.co/7fZyIAjzRX
— Wellington City Council (@WgtnCC) August 3, 2018
There has been a power outage in Wellington Station. Services are unaffected however ticket window purchases are cash only.
— Metlink Wellington (@metlinkwgtn) August 3, 2018
We have experienced a fault at our Wilton substation which has caused a loss of power in Wellington. We have crews on site currently working to restore power as quickly as they are safely able. We apologise for the inconvenience.
— Transpower NZ (@TranspowerNZ) August 3, 2018
Looks like there's a power outage in the Wellington CBD. Generator lights only at Vic Pip - traffic lights down. No lights on in Beehive either. #wellington #wellingtonnz pic.twitter.com/PTo7hOZQRd
— Saeran Maniparathy (@SaeranM) August 3, 2018
For those truly interested, the #wellington power outage is apparently due to Transpower's Wilton grid-exit point, which affects the circled Wellington Electricity zone-substations... pic.twitter.com/9jz87xxtqq
— Rustie (@rustie5555) August 3, 2018
On a packed out train - looks like a lot of people have been sent home from work due to this Wellington CBD power outage pic.twitter.com/BMVicH9QJj
— Saeran Maniparathy (@SaeranM) August 3, 2018
Power seems to be out in Central Wellington. Traffic lights at Lambton and Bowen are out, as is power at Law School across the road
— Brad Olsen (@BradOlsenNZL) August 3, 2018
Our Wellington branch is currently closed due to a power outage. We'll keep you updated, but in the meantime, if you need to get in touch, you can call us on 0800 872 226. Online and Mobile Banking services are still available. pic.twitter.com/N38J1w7Y8p
— TSB New Zealand (@TSB_NZ) August 3, 2018
