Keeping rural Taranaki connected

Taranaki communities in and around Douglas and Pātea have been the first to benefit from the mobile substation.

From July to September 2020, it was parked up at the Douglas Substation – keeping the power on for the Douglas, Strathmore, Huiroa and Toko communities, while we completed essential upgrades, repairs and general maintenance work on the substation.

In March 2021, the mobile substation moved to the Livingston Substation to ensure security of supply for Pātea and surrounding communities after a number of unplanned power outages. The cause of the outages ranged from high winds, to blown fuses and equipment failure, of which it was suspected a possum tripped equipment at the substation.

With no back-up supply, in the past, the rural communities would have undergone prolonged and on-going periods of planned power outages so the work could be safely carried out, Mike Carson says.

“Many of our rural substations have a single power supply and, for safety reasons, we have to cut power to customers for any maintenance or upgrade work.

“The mobile substation allows Powerco to divert the electricity supply around the rural substation, allowing it to be removed from service without cutting customers’ power.

“This means minimal disruption to our communities while we continue to work towards a more efficient, safe and reliable network for our customers.”