Aurora’s unplanned outages a concern, says ComCom

The Commerce Commission (ComCom) says Aurora Energy has complied with all of its price and quality regulatory obligations in year two of its five-year customised price‐quality path (CPP). However, the commission has some concerns over an increase in unplanned outages impacting consumers.

ComCom has published its second fact sheet on Aurora, providing a snapshot of performance and delivery in the second year of its CPP.

Aurora applied for the CPP to address historical underinvestment in its network.

In assessing network reliability for the year ended March 31, 2023, Commerce Commission infrastructure regulation general manager Andy Burgess says that in spite of a strong investment in its network the average time without electricity experienced by Aurora’s customers (about 200,000 in Otago, Queenstown, Dunedin, Wanaka) due to unplanned outages has increased.

Aurora’s spend for this period was $145.4 million, including $54.6m towards asset replacement and renewal.

Burgess says replacing old and failing assets is a priority under Aurora’s CPP to address safety and reliability issues for its customers.

“While we note the positive action to improve asset health and safety – we are also conscious of the impact outages can have on households, businesses and the wider community who rely on a safe and reliable supply to go about their everyday lives,” says Burgess.

As part of its CPP obligations, Aurora will publish independent expert reports in March this year as part of a mid-CPP review, which will examine Aurora’s progress under the CPP further and recommend any improvements.

“We are working with Aurora to unpack the underlying issues contributing to outages and will offer further comment after we read the independent reports,” says Burgess.

While outages remain an issue, the commission notes Aurora has made improvements in customer communication. A new outage management system means customers can now sign up to receive texts alerts on outages and estimated time to restore power. 

Aurora is New Zealand’s seventh largest electricity distribution network by customer connections and its CPP, which came into effect in April 2021, allows the company to recover up to $563 million from its consumers to address safety and reliability issues across its network.

Aurora must also disclose additional information to improve the visibility of its performance and accountability to its stakeholders, including customers.

 Lines companies have to report to the commission on the number of unplanned outages and the average duration of each unplanned outage.

This includes providing a breakdown of causes for all unplanned outages which may be related to weather, defective equipment, third party interference (such as an accident damaging infrastructure), vegetation damage or other causes.