Power outages have been on the rise, and so is the frustration among rural communities across the region who are calling for more reliability.
The lights went out on Monday night throughout Hawea and Makarora for more than 2000 Aurora Energy customers from about 5pm-10pm.
This was especially difficult for residents because the outage took place during a cold winter night during the school holidays.
Makarora’s Wild Earth Lodge owner Pete Phillips was disappointed as he said this was the 13th unplanned outage they had experienced in the past year.
"I just think it’s just not acceptable any more in this day and age .. ... we’re not blaming the guys who are working on the lines, it’s just that there’s a system failure somewhere," he said
He said communication from Aurora Energy was lacking and residents were rarely informed about issues. But he felt the infrastructure in the rural area was the main culprit.
Having lived and worked in the area for about 18 years, he said he had never known the outages to be so bad. They were impacting his tourism-driven business.
"We can’t walk around on eggshells when you’ve got 10 guests staying and you’re trying to look after everyone and then the power goes off," he said.
Hawea Store and Kitchen co-owner Hamish Mackay had also experienced issues trying to run his business with the unplanned power outages.
"Last night we lost a significant amount of trade because without the power ... he said in reference to Monday night’s outage. The store also faced the risk of losing refrigerated stock as Mr Mackay said it was more difficult to get the generators working in time if the outage was unplanned.
"For us to run everything that we need, there’s only a certain amount of food generators available in the area."
Aurora general manager of future network and operations Matt Settle apologised in a statement for the outage on Monday night and said the company was still investigating what caused the issue.
Although most power was returned to customers by 8pm that night, he said the team decided to cut the power 30 minutes later for safety reasons at the request of Fire and Emergency NZ.
He confirmed the wider Makarora and Hawea region had experienced 13 unplanned outages over the past year. Rapid growth was a significant contributing factor.
"The Hawea township has experienced significant growth in recent years and our regional electricity development plan that will be released publicly later this year will set out the longer-term options for enhancing and developing the Upper Clutha network," he said.
Hawea resilience group chairman Andre Meyer stressed the importance of being prepared.
He had spoken to some residents following the black out on Monday night who had used candles as an alternative light source, something he urged locals not to do, urging people to use devices such as camping lights instead.
