The partial power outage on Monday 7^th June 2021 at 3:12pm is a result of a High Voltage (HV) cable fault between the Avatiu Power Station and Tutakimoa Substation (TAU main office). The response team were able to restore power to affected areas on the island at 5:12pm and power was fully restored to all areas affected by 5:35pm that afternoon. The distribution system is manually operated, and this does require our Field Services team to be deployed to various locations on island to assist in restoring power, which can be attributed to the delays previously experienced.

TAU’s Technical team was able to pinpoint the location of the cable fault on Monday night and plans to expose the cable to determine the cause as well as repair the fault this Friday 11^th June. The previous fault experienced prior to this outage, was also a HV cable fault, caused by excavation. TAU continues to build relations with Infrastructure Cook Islands, Civil Contractors on the island and the wider community to ensure that cable location is a priority for all works carried out where digging is concerned.

For some Plant (Generation) faults experienced, the causes are a lot more complex to diagnose and analyse, which in some cases requires external support.  TAU’s power system is set up in a way that in almost all cases of outages, we are able to isolate and resupply power as quickly as possible to our customers while we investigate and carry out repair work as needed.

“TAU is mandated to provide a reliable supply of electricity to the Rarotonga community; however, we cannot guarantee uninterrupted supply. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused.” says CEO, Lesley Katoa.