It also lost more than $200,000 from not supplying power.
PowerNet chief executive Paul Blue said yesterday the total cost of repairing the electricity networks under its management from the impacts of the storm that battered Southland and South Otago last October had been put at about $7 million.
‘‘These costs are not final, as there are ongoing impacts including more minor damage that has forced planned maintenance programmes to be brought forward,’’ he said.
A storm which hit Southland and South Otago the hardest blew through the province on October 23 last year, causing widespread damage to the area. No-one was severely injured but it led to more than 10,000 insurance claims with insurance company FMG having already paid out $32 million.
Hundreds of poles and kilometres of power lines were destroyed by falling trees during the severe wind event and more than 50,000 network customers were left without power initially.
‘‘While the storm took a huge toll on the network infrastructure, I couldn’t have been more impressed with the response of staff, and mutual aid partners, who were fully committed to restoring power and the community who were not only patient, but displayed incredible understanding towards PowerNet staff.’’
Mr Blue said the reality was the province and country was likely to get more of these types of severe weather events.
‘‘We need to improve the resilience of our networks, particularly around management of trees near power lines. More than 90% of outages were caused by falling trees and this could have been avoided.’’
As well as repairs, PowerNet faced additional costs from the storm, as some customers were without power for up to two weeks and PowerNet had obligations to reduce line charges during that time.
‘‘It’s a bit more complicated than just refunding customers for their line charges, as these are made up of several different components and are charged to individual customers through their electricity retailer.
About 29,400 customers were deemed to be eligible for line charge reductions, at a total cost of $202,000 to the networks under PowerNet management.
Customers would receive any reductions directly from their retailer and should contact them with queries.
PowerNet did not reply to a question about whether the $7 million cost would lead to higher line charges.
