Power outage - Transmission Tower Down

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Reanalyse

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#315187 20-Jun-2024 14:54

I love the comment from the farmer about the tower collapse on One News

"He said there had been people working on the pylon around the time it fell and "thankfully none of [the] livestock were in danger".

Shows farming priorities 🙂

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#3251227 20-Jun-2024 15:23

damn right to. people have a choice if they put themselves in danger or not, livestock don't get much of a choice. its up to the farmer to look after them.

we have power here fortunately. whats interesting in the pics of the pylons is the structure looks fine, it looks like the baseplate to footing has failed. its also looks clean like someone removed the bolts on several baseplates.

wellygary

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#3251228 20-Jun-2024 15:24

Approx 200MW ( around 1/3 of Northland) fell off the grid @11.05am
The blue line is not proportional - load now is around 400MW

Transpower are saying full restoration could be at least a day away

"Transpower has issued an operational Grid Emergency Notice, which gives a timeframe for the emergency to 12 noon tomorrow as an interim period,"

https://www.transpower.co.nz/news/update-northland-power-outage-230pm-20-june

CYaBro

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#3251236 20-Jun-2024 16:35

tweake:

damn right to. people have a choice if they put themselves in danger or not, livestock don't get much of a choice. its up to the farmer to look after them.

we have power here fortunately. whats interesting in the pics of the pylons is the structure looks fine, it looks like the baseplate to footing has failed. its also looks clean like someone removed the bolts on several baseplates.

Not sure if true but I've read that the pylon was being sandblasted at the time and they apparently needed to remove some bolts.
If that's the true and is the cause of it falling over then someone's in trouble! 🙃

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

mattwnz

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#3251237 20-Jun-2024 16:52

There is going to be an investigation on why it fell over. It seems crazy that these sorts of things keep happening with all the red tape and compliance needed these days, and a lack of redundancy.

tweake

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#3251238 20-Jun-2024 17:13

CYaBro:

Not sure if true but I've read that the pylon was being sandblasted at the time and they apparently needed to remove some bolts.
If that's the true and is the cause of it falling over then someone's in trouble! 🙃

certainly possible. as mentioned workers where there recently. people pushing to get work done and someone trying to help removed the nuts in advance. thats caused quite a few accidents over the years (aircraft accidents, crane accidents etc). mate had it on a power pole when a new worker, not following instructions, disconnected a wire and dropped it onto the other circuit. trying to push things along instead of following procedure.

wellygary

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#3251239 20-Jun-2024 17:15

CYaBro:

Not sure if true but I've read that the pylon was being sandblasted at the time and they apparently needed to remove some bolts.
If that's the true and is the cause of it falling over then someone's in trouble! 🙃

It would seem strange to be sand blasting the tower with live circuits....

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johno1234

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#3251240 20-Jun-2024 17:16

Especially when the backup transmission line/circuit was out for maintenance.

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#3251241 20-Jun-2024 17:19

CYaBro:

Not sure if true but I've read that the pylon was being sandblasted at the time and they apparently needed to remove some bolts.
If that's the true and is the cause of it falling over then someone's in trouble! 🙃

I've seen the same claim but I don't know the provenance of it. It was posted in a Discord server with no reference.

johno1234

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#3251242 20-Jun-2024 17:26

Someone said it on the interweb so it must be true!

CYaBro

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#3251243 20-Jun-2024 17:30

wellygary:

CYaBro:

Not sure if true but I've read that the pylon was being sandblasted at the time and they apparently needed to remove some bolts.
If that's the true and is the cause of it falling over then someone's in trouble! 🙃

It would seem strange to be sand blasting the tower with live circuits....

They're not live now! 🤣

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

tweake

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#3251244 20-Jun-2024 17:31

wellygary:

CYaBro:

Not sure if true but I've read that the pylon was being sandblasted at the time and they apparently needed to remove some bolts.
If that's the true and is the cause of it falling over then someone's in trouble! 🙃

It would seem strange to be sand blasting the tower with live circuits....

not sure about sandblasting but they do clean and paint them on a regular basis. used to see them quite regularly on one of farms.

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Gurezaemon

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#3251249 20-Jun-2024 17:54

Aaaand the power has just come on now. Power cuts never cease to surprise me how dependent we are on power for... everything.

Also, a reminder - occasionally check the battery car starter packs that you may have in the back of the car. Ours was dead flat after a year of not being used.

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SomeoneSomewhere

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#3251252 20-Jun-2024 18:02

The bottom half of the tower is a long way from live conductors; I wouldn't be surprised if they can do that live.

Most work on a tower can I believe be done with at least one circuit live.

snj

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#3251254 20-Jun-2024 18:30

wellygary:

It would seem strange to be sand blasting the tower with live circuits....

Have one of the 220kv Henderson to Marsden towers in a paddock here (the line that went down), it's actually surprising the sort of work they do on live (or partially live) towers. Actually had them do one of their regular inspections on Tuesday.

Certainly raised an eyebrow a few times when they've said "Oh yeah, we're doing this while the power is still live" or "oh yeah, only one side has been disconnected, the other side is still live". Because it's certainly something that you think along the lines of "I'd want that fully off if it was me".

I can't remember if the recent sandblasting and painting works were one of those times, but it wouldn't surprise me.

tweake

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#3251259 20-Jun-2024 19:15

Gurezaemon:

Also, a reminder - occasionally check the battery car starter packs that you may have in the back of the car. Ours was dead flat after a year of not being used.

ditto for emergency lighting. i found mine was flat as a pancake.

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