13 Mar 2017
Transpower has today released its preliminary report into the loss of supply event which affected some parts of the South Island on Thursday 2 March.
The report outlines what happened, the impact of the outage, how the power system reacted and the restoration process.
While there is never a good time for an outage, the report confirms the National Grid responded well on Thursday 2 March. Transpower’s automatic systems worked as they should, restoring most power supply within an hour and preventing further outages on a wider scale.
Transpower is currently finalising the scope for a full, more detailed investigation into this incident. This second report will explore the circumstances that caused the event, review the effectiveness of the event response and identify any areas for improvement.
The report may be found here.
Background information:
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Transpower uses a system called Automatic Under Frequency Load Shedding (AUFLS) to prevent power system collapse and blackout following large, rare system events affecting New Zealand’s National Grid.
- The AUFLS system acts as a ‘safety net’, dropping capacity of parts of the wider transmission network in order to pretect the network as a whole and prevent further outages.
For further information, please contact:
Clea Marshall, Communications Business Partner, 04 590 6633 or 027 807 9904
Downloads
Media release — initial AUFLS investigation report March 2017