The Lake Hāwea Community Association will meet with Aurora Energy chief executive Richard Fletcher on Monday following a power outage late last month.
The outage left over 2000 customers across Hāwea and Makarora without power on a cold winter night during the school holidays.
The association’s acting chairwoman Cherilyn Walthew said the community had its fair share of questions, starting with why the power voltage was low during the outage last month.
She also wanted to discuss the broader issues Hāwea was facing.
She referenced the increase in housing development and growth around areas such as Longview which have had issues in the past due to lack of power infrastructure.
"Basically because we’ve got all these new developments that are happening in the urban growth boundary and with Longview, there is not enough power cables out here," she said.
The need for better long-term planning was one of three main points Ms Walthew intended to bring up at the meeting.
She felt the Queenstown Lakes District Council consent process needed to have more clarity when considering infrastructure, including power availability.
"These conversations should be happening on a long-term planning basis," she said.
The final point Ms Walthew wanted to bring up was the need for better reimbursement and more importantly, better communication from the provider as to how the scheme worked.
She said as far as she knew, the reimbursement scheme that used to be in place was not well known to the community until it was cancelled recently.
"Most of the people I spoke to, including myself, didn’t know there was a scheme until such time as they cancelled it."
Aurora Energy spokesman Matt Pratt said the company’s 2017 customer charter was reviewed last August and no longer included a service level for compensating customers if power was not restored after an unplanned power outage within set timeframes.
The decision to remove the service level was due to numerous factors including the time it took to restore power and the difficulty of the repair.
"The time it takes to restore electricity after an unplanned outage is often beyond our control due to considerations such as safety requirements, the travel distance for our contractors, and the complexity of the fault," Mr Pratt said.
The power provider held a consultation in 2023, before which it claimed it had recognised its customers experienced fewer extended unplanned outages compared with the national average.
"This indicated that the credit payment was not effectively targeted," Mr Pratt said.
The new charter has doubled the charter credit from $20 to $40, if the company fails to give proper notice of a planned outage, via electricity retailers.
The process to develop the new charter included an extensive review, engagement with the Commerce Commission, and a well-publicised consultation.
In his statement, Mr Pratt assured the Hāwea community plans were under way to improve the electricity supply into the Upper Clutha, which included developing a regional electricity development plan to outline long-term projects.
In addition to the private meeting with the Hāwea Community Association on Monday, Aurora Energy also plans to meet with the community in the coming months to discuss strengthening the region’s electricity network.
