There was a chill in the air over the last week letting us know that winter is  not quite over. There were three car v poles during the week in Whenuapai, Mangere, Manurewa, plus a digger v pole in Ellerslie. Faults crews attended three building fires across Auckland including a shed on fire in Otahuhu East. Faults crews also repaired a broken Telecom pole arm, three Telecom lines down in New Lynn, re-hung low cables in Glenfield and Greenhithe, fixed a Telecom line that was brought down by a tree in Epsom as well as lines that were brought down in Ellerslie by a truck.

Branches struck lines in Puhoi, a tree brought down lines at Muriwai and lines clashing caused an outage in Greenlane.  The Fire Service also reported sparking lines in Lincoln Park, which turned out to be fireworks.

 

There were three third party strikes on our network including one in Mellons Bay when a pipe was hit by a digger. Crews also attended a gas leak in Tauranga and one in Kawerau. Fault crews made all sites safe and repaired the equipment. Please take care around our gas network and call 0508 B4 U WORK (248 967) or 0800 B4 U DIG if outside Auckland.

 

Vector has successfully completed Phase One of the new indoor 33 kV substation at Wairau.  The new indoor substation has now been commissioned and has been supplying power to some customers on the North Shore for the last two months.  The work was phased to minimize the risk of disruption of supplies by avoiding work during the peak load period over winter. The remaining customers’ supplies will be connected to the new indoor substation between October and December 2012 as part of Phase Two of the works.  Vector does not anticipate any disruption to supply during this changeover.  After the changeover, the outdoor substation will be dismantled and removed. The construction of the new Grid Exit Point (GXP) at Wairau continues.  This GXP is part of the wider reinforcement of the CBD and North Shore North Auckland and Northland (NAaN) project, being lead by Transpower.  The GXP should be commissioned mid 2013.

 

 

Last week AMS celebrated two key milestones in the Contact smart meter deployment. The 5,000^th meter has now been installed, and over the next few months, the deployment rate will continue to rise to its peak level of more than 5,000 meters per month.