If a 7.5 magnitude earthquake occurred on the Wellington fault line, many roads could be blocked by slips isolating parts of the regions from each other.  This has the potential to slow down repairs to our network, which could suffer significant damage in such an event.  Such delays could result in an extended loss of electricity supply for many of our customers.

We have been investigating how we can reduce outage times after a large earthquake and we have now developed the first stage of our readiness and resilience planning.  This includes strengthening buildings, purchasing spare equipment which can be stored across the region, updating our communication links and improving access to our core information systems.  This will assist in getting power back onto our communities and businesses after a major earthquake.

The work will cost just over $31 million and we need approval from the Commerce Commission to be able to recover the cost at an additional charge of around $1.90 per month for a typical residential consumer.

Our application to the Commerce Commission can be found below.  If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, we would love to hear from you - we_CustomerService@welectricity.co.nz. Alternatively, you can submit directly into the Commerce Commission process here .