Consumer response to outages wins praise

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 3

Consumer response to outages wins praise

Consumers responded well to the power cuts in North Canterbury yesterday, resulting in outages of no more than four hours. This was only half the duration that had been expected, said the North Canterbury Electric Power Board engineering manager, Mr Abdul Khan. The board had kept well within its required load as consumers had been very co-operative and restricted their usage. Despite a few complaints from consumers, most people were aware of the cuts and the reason for them, he said. The consumers which suffered the brunt of the cuts were domestic users and outlying commercial customers. Power was maintained to the central business area of Rangiora and large

> industries. Water heating was switched off at 7 1 a.m. yesterday followed by complete power cuts from 7.30 a.m. onwards t throughout North Canterbury. Power was 1 restored to all areas by about 3 p.m. . apart from water heating and other control loads. ; Most domestic consumers in Kaiapoi 1 were left without power yesterday morn- • ing. Starting from 7.45 a.m. power was cut . to three-quarters of domestic consumers, j said the Kaiapoi electricity engineer, Mr Max Trumper. Power was cut to the > remaining domestic consumers in the ; afternoon. The cuts were the result of industrial i action over their wage claim by electric- ; ity workers.