It was either Oscar Wilde or Donald Trump who said you never really appreciate a thing until it’s gone. For the past week, over half of Auckland’s homes have had their power supply disrupted by a vicious storm that hit the region for six. A lot of people got to experience first hand, just how much life is altered without electricity.
Vector – the monopoly supplier of electricity to most of the Auckland region, found itself woefully exposed to deal with the crisis because it did not have the communication network in place to deal with the consumers who needed hard, fast, and honest information.
Don’t get me wrong, the Vector crews who have worked through days and nights in terrible weather to restore most of the power supply throughout the city are certainly deserving of plaudits. But their response is not the issue. The greatest fault was Vector’s outage app that failed to deliver on its primary purpose – to inform – to let those without power know when they might be reconnected. The Vector app failed firstly because it was unavailable after the storm. That’s to be understood – when 180,000 homes lose power so soon, the system will be struggling to cope. But from there things got worse – only because those who maintained the app and the information on the Vector website that directed people toward the app, failed to grasp that giving consumers restoration times the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, was not the way to play it. People could not make plans, they believed what they were told and as hours and days passed and new restoration times were posted, patience and understanding evaporated.
“Don’t get me wrong, the Vector crews who have worked through day and night in terrible weather to restore most of the power supply throughout the city are certainly deserving of plaudits.”
The best response would have been to admit that a major crisis had taken down half of the network and there was no point in even estimating times until a fuller understanding of the situation was reached and more reliable information could be transmitted. Vector didn’t do that and it assumed that those without power, and thus no battery on cell phones, could also stay on hold for over an hour to talk to someone at their contact centre. What was needed was an information portal that could be accessed as easily as possible – with the very best information to hand.
“The performance of Vector’s communication team and its information portal were woefully substandard and based on the thousands of customer feedback I have read on many different media, were the common causes of complaint.”
But the whole point of this piece is not fully to gripe. I’m more than well aware that fellow New Zealanders have had far harder and longer lasting effects of ‘acts of god’ in the past eight years or so. The point here is management – direction, ownership, taking responsibility.
To his credit, Vector’s CEO, Simon Mackenzie, made the effort to answer tired and angry complaints on Vector’s Facebook page. He also fronted a personal video on Vector’s website. He tried to be assuring but he needed to be contrite. The performance of Vector’s communication team and its information portal were woefully substandard and based on the thousands of customer feedback I have read on many different media, were the common causes of complaint.
“There is too much at stake if this country’s largest city can be affected so much and it is those who lost power who bear the financial loss . . .”
The saying ‘the buck stops here’ comes to mind and Mr Mackenzie, despite fronting in a number of ways, needs to let Aucklanders know that there is a huge problem with the city’s power network if it is so vulnerable to a storm. There is too much at stake if this country’s largest city can be affected so much and it is those who lost power who bear the financial loss – through lost income, food wastage, unforeseen costs such as accommodation, takeaway food and travel.
“One doesn’t need to be an electricity scientist to understand that you do not want trees in, around, or adjacent to power lines . . .”
It has been reported today in the NZ Herald that Vector will not be compensating consumers who have incurred financial loss because this was ‘an act of god’.
“The “Vector Promise” states that urban customers of the lines company should get a $50 rebate if their power is not restored in 2.5 hours after an outage. For rural customers, it’s three hours.
“But the promise does not apply to faults caused by extreme storms or other extreme events outside the company’s control, Vector says . . .”
Mmmmmm. One doesn’t need to be an electricity scientist to understand that you do not want trees in, around, or adjacent to power lines and Auckland is riddled with Council ‘maintained’ trees that do exactly that. One would imagine that these things combined– a really big storm, and trees near power lines – would not end well. In fact, you don’t need to imagine. It happened and it happens regularly. So while we may construe storms and earthquakes and other things beyond our ‘control’ as the ‘work of the almighty’, that is a cop out.
Auckland Council and Vector are both responsible and need to get a workable plan in action to ensure we can mitigate, as much as possible – the forces of nature that can leave us at their mercy. Two things come to mind without much struggle – underground power lines, or failing that – trees and power lines removed from proximity to each other.
And lastly – Vector should pay the $50 compensation – it is a drop in the bucket compared to what consumers actually lost – and it may go a little way to restoring a reputation that has been as badly affected as the city’s power grid in the past week.
(Image credit: stuff.co.nz)
