Queenstown power outage: Third party damages high-voltage cable

The Queenstown CBD lost power unexpectedly this morning after a third party damaged a high voltage cable.

A spokesperson for Aurora Energy has declined to comment further on exactly what happened or who was at fault, other than to say, "Third parties can range from a variety of contractors to members of the public". 

They say the lines company "was able to reconfigure the network to back-feed electricity to the majority of customers while repairs were made".

Meanwhile, an unrelated power outage in Arrowtown earlier this morning impacted a little more than 3,000 customers, and power was restored within 20 minutes.

"At the time, one of the two main lines into the area was out of service for planned maintenance at the request of Transpower, meaning there was no option for the load to be picked up by the second line, as it usually would be," the spokesperson says.

"Our response crews could not determine the cause however it is not unusual for lines companies to be unable to pinpoint the cause of every fault because some fault conditions occur only momentarily, making them difficult to detect.

"This can occur when there may have been brief contact with the lines by, for example, a falling branch or animal interference, where any evidence of this has disappeared.

"We thank customers for their patience while our fault crews worked hard to restore power as quickly and safely as possible."