Power is out in Atawhai, Akersten, Hope, Brightwater, Wakefield, Dovedale and Tasman areas following a wide-spread unscheduled power outage across the South Island.
Network Tasman’s network manager Murray Hendricks says areas throughout the South Island are currently without power.
“Details are a bit sketchy at this stage but it’s a national grid event, there’s been a tripping of generation somewhere which has caused the frequency to fall in the South Island.
“It’s really unusual, this is the first event like this that we’ve been aware of, it’s a very strange event and it’s spread right throughout the South Island, so there’ll be significant parts of Christchurch, Dunedin and the whole lot being affected.”
Murray says they are waiting for Transpower to put the system back together, which involves building back up the generation and load and could take a few hours.
