1998 Auckland power crisis
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The 1998 Auckland power crisis was a five-week-long
power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricit ...
affecting the central city of
Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...
, New Zealand from 19 February to 27 March 1998. A 1998 ministerial inquiry criticised both the Auckland Electric Power Board and its
privatised Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
successor, which had halved its staff after taking over in October 1993. The report blamed risk and asset management and contingency planning, but said reviews of the electricity network were in accordance with industry practice. However,
Mercury Energy Mercury NZ Limited is a New Zealand electricity generation and multi-product utility retailer of electricity, gas, broadband and mobile telephone services. All the company's electricity generation is renewable. In August 2021, Mercury acquired ...
’s Board had known for 5 years of a potential failure of the power cables, but, instead of also replacing them, took the cost-saving risk of only building a replacement tunnel, which wasn't ready in time. The inquiry report also said, "Internal expertise in 110 kV assets was not maintained at a sufficient level". At the time, almost all of Auckland's central business district was supplied with electricity by Mercury Energy Limited via four 110 kV
power cable A power cable is an electrical cable, an assembly of one or more electrical conductors, usually held together with an overall sheath. The assembly is used for transmission of electrical power. Power cables may be installed as permanent wiring wi ...
s from the national grid at Transpower's Penrose substation, with two cables each connecting to two central city substations at Liverpool Street and
Quay Street Quay Street is a street in the city centre of Manchester, England. The street, designated the A34, continues Peter Street westwards towards the River Irwell and Salford. It is the northern boundary of Spinningfields, the city's business dist ...
. The two cables connecting to Quay Street were 40-year-old gas-insulated cables that were past their replacement date. One of the Quay Street cables failed on 20 January, possibly due to the unusually hot and dry conditions, although this did not warrant a crisis as the three remaining cables could still supply the central city. The second Quay street cable failed on 9 February, leaving only the Liverpool Street cables supplying the city. Due to the increased load from the failure of the first cables, these remaining two cables failed on 19 and 20 February, leaving the entire central city supplied by a single 22 kV cable from Kingsland, resulting in about 20 city blocks (except parts of a few streets) losing all power. Queen Street was almost deserted for the first few days, as few businesses could operate. Some brought goods out onto the street to sell, but heavy rain in the first week made that impractical. Generators were brought in from around the country to power essential services and some businesses. These made Queen Street a very noisy place and thus deterred customers. Some businesses estimated that the outage cost them at least NZ$60,000 per week. In the five weeks it took to restore the power supply, about 60,000 of the 74,000 people who worked in the area worked from home or from relocated offices in the suburbs. Some businesses relocated staff to other New Zealand cities, or even to Australia. The majority of the 6,000 apartment dwellers in the area had to find alternative accommodation. Temporary power was supplied to the Port of Auckland by the
Union Rotorua ''Union Rotorua'' was a large ro-ro vessel operated on the trans Tasman route by the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand (USSCo). Along with her sister ship ''Union Rotoiti'', she was unusual in that she originally had turbo-electric transmi ...
, a gas turbine powered cargo ship. The old gas cables were found to be repairable and were put back into service, but were restricted to 30 MVA capacity. The newer oil cables were irreparable, so to restore full supply to the city, a temporary 110 kV overhead line was constructed along the rail corridor between Penrose and Liverpool Street. Energy Minister
Max Bradford Maxwell Robert Bradford (born 19 January 1942) is a former New Zealand politician and cabinet minister. He was an MP for the National Party from 1990 to 2002. He is best known for introducing the " Bright Future" economic initiative in 1999, a ...
commissioned an independent report into the Auckland power supply failure. The report of the Ministerial Inquiry was released on 21 July 1998. Following the crisis Mercury Energy Limited disposed of its electricity and gas retail business and, renamed
Vector Limited Vector Limited is an electricity and gas distribution company in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the national number one provider of electricity distribution, number one provider of electricity and gas Measuring instrument, metering and number tw ...
, replaced the cables and reinforced the supply into Auckland. In 2001, a 9 km tunnel from Penrose to
Hobson Street __NOTOC__ Hobson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Hobson (surname) * Hobson R. Reynolds (1898–1991), American politician and judge Places New Zealand * Hobson County, New Zealand, a former local authority * Mount Hobson (Au ...
via Liverpool Street was completed, containing two new 110 kV cables to replace the damaged Liverpool Street cables and the temporary overhead line. A third 110 kV cable was installed from Mount Roskill to Quay Street via Liverpool Street, largely superseding the old gas cables which were eventually decommissioned.


See also

*
2006 Auckland Blackout The 2006 Auckland Blackout was a major electrical Power blackout, blackout in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, on 12 June 2006. It started at 08:30 local time, with most areas of Auckland regaining power by 14:45 local time. It affected ...
*
List of major power outages This is a list of notable wide-scale power outages. To be included, the power outage must conform to of the following criteria: * The outage must not be planned by the service provider. * The outage must affect at least 1k people. * The outage m ...


References


External links

*{{Citation , last = Gutman , first = Peter , title = Auckland's Power Outage or Auckland – Your Y2K Beta Test Site , place = Auckland, New Zealand , year = 1998 , url = https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/misc/mercury.txt , accessdate= 22 November 2014 , archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/19990208234500/http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/misc/mercury.txt , archivedate = 8 February 1999 , url-status = live – A detailed and hilarious write up on the crisis.
Final report
of the Ministerial Inquiry into the Auckland Power Supply Failure

an article in ''Wired'' (magazine) Issue 7.04 describing the commercial and human impacts of the outage and discussing secondary effects.
The night the lights went out in Auckland
– RNZ Eyewitness interviews Power outages in New Zealand 1990s in Auckland Auckland Power Crisis, 1998 Auckland Power Crisis, 1998 Auck February 1998 events in New Zealand March 1998 events in New Zealand