Work is underway to restore power to more than 1700 households in Canterbury after a helicopter cut power lines yesterday.
The process of restoring power in Tekapo and Fairlie began around 3.30pm, Alpine Energy chief customer strategy officer Andrew Kerr told 1News in a statement.
He said Alpine hoped to restore electricity for all residents and businesses by 7.30pm.
In an update this afternoon, Transpower said it had completed repairs to its Tekapo-Timaru line and Alpine is now working to reconnect customers in Tekapo, Albury, and surrounding areas.
Transpower executive general manager grid delivery Mark Ryall said their crews “worked until dark last night and from sunrise this morning to get the repairs done safely as soon as possible so that power could be restored”.
“We are grateful to local lines company Alpine Energy who were able to back feed power supply to some areas in Albury and Fairlie, as well as source additional generation for key sites in the Tekapo township.
“There is never a good time to be without power and we’d like to thank the people of the affected communities for their patience while we carried out our work.”
The incident occurred when a crop-dusting helicopter cut transmission lines about halfway between Timaru and Tekapo at 10.25am yesterday.
Earlier this morning, Alpine Energy said around 1750 homes were affected last night.
Tekapo Community Board chairman Steve Howes told 1News that many of the town’s residential areas were still without power.
He said most of the village had power again, which meant businesses were back online, but some were still using backup generators.
Howes said the town was in the thick of its tourism season, which meant it was important to get power back up and running.
“The real challenge is that although there are only 400 or so permanent residents in Takapo, there could be over 2500, 3000 people on an average night during the busy season, which we are in right now,” he said.
“Without that critical infrastructure, it means we are really gonna wrestle to meet the demand.”
He said the “irony of it” was the town was just 2km away from a power station.
A spokesperson said Alpine was reliant on Transpower to finish its work, and a Transpower spokesperson said they aimed to restore power to local lines later today.
Alpine was working to reconfigure the network to supply customers as “best we can”.
It was also working with the council to prioritise and coordinate where power could be collectively supplied.
A community centre in Tekapo was also set up today for locals who needed power or a “cup of tea”.
Alpine urged customers to use as little energy as possible so more customers could be supplied.