Generation
Wairua Hydro Station
The Wairua power station owned by Northpower was first built in the early 1900’s with this first of the generators installed in 1911. With great care and maintenance these are still operating. In progress at the moment there is much activity at the site with the water canal being upgraded. This will provide a much improved water flow. Better water management in flood situations and a much reduced maintenance cost for many years. The power station’s aging control system has also been replaced to maximise output and reduce outages.
A 4th generator was installed at the site in 2007 and with the latest improvements to the canal walls, control systems and increased capacity the power station can now run at its optimum and has resulted in a station that is now a solid robust structure that will increase the life of the asset well in to the future. Will now have the capacity to 50,000 100 watt light bulbs.
Northpower Network Power Usage
The maximum half hourly system demand on Northpower’s network is approximately 147 MW drawing supply from Transpower’s national grid at five main substations:
Maungatapere - 34 MW
Bream Bay - 41 MW
Dargaville - 10 MW
Maungaturoto - 14 MW
Kensington - 53 MW
Northpower Whangarei Depot Standby Generator
The Whangarei Depot’s just recently upgraded its emergency standby generator. The increased demand in the essential supply system has arisen from Northpower’s requirement to improve storm and emergency control of the network distribution system and handle increased numbers of simultaneous callers requiring assistance.
Overall when the unwanted storms come thru, Northpower can respond quicker to customer outages and get the power back on.
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Did you know?
The fireball temperature from an electrical arc can reach nine thousand degrees. If a person’s bare skin is hit by that arc it will be severely burned.