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While restoration work is yet to be completed in rural areas, over 100 shops and houses in Pangai which were not seriously affected during the cyclone have got back power supply. Over time we will review the state of the supply to these premises and we will likely upgrade the connections to our grid with more robust and weather proof supplies, in the meantime it is good to get our customers to receive electricity supply.
The difficulty to transport materials to some inaccessible areas had delayed restoration of power carried to homes and businesses with some severely damaged or destroyed during the cyclone. Tonga Power has 972 customers in Ha’apai of which 75% of homes severely damaged or destroyed in the powerful storm.
It is estimated that restoring and rebuilding the electricity network in Ha’apai will take a few months as further surveys and requests for power supply from households need to be confirmed.
According to Setitaia Chen, Tonga Power’s Planning and Design Manager “The initial damage assessment carried out on the 13th of January 2014 indicated that over 90% to 95% of the Ha’apai network was extensively damaged”.
“95% of Low Voltage and High Voltage lines suffered damages due to the cyclone, 40% of the HV poles and 70% of the LV poles were either snapped or pulled to the ground, 65% of transformers were damaged and 90% of all service lines to people’s properties suffered extensive damage”, he said.
The Tonga Power team in Ha’apai has been working hard all week to rebuild the network and restore power supply in Pangai including the Hospital, Water Board and the Ministry of Agriculture, TCC, Digicel and rebuild the LV and HV network towards the Airport.
Tonga Power’s CEO, John van Brink said “While we are able to restore supply to a number of homes and buildings, the end result is to ensure that the supply will be safe and reliable well into the future. This will require a significant investment. In fact we have estimated the cost of rebuilding the network into one that will be more resilient to weather events like this, to be around TOP5 million. Meanwhile we have pulled out all stops to get supply back to as many customers as we are able. The team have been tremendous. We have around twenty staff working on the system, and they have tirelessly worked day and night in order to at least provide some positive impact for our Ha’apai customers. I take my hat off to them and also to the support staff and management here in Tongatapu. Meanwhile the Vava’u team have managed to get supply back to all customers within a week, something that has also taken monumental effort for the line and generation staff.”
The crew will continue progressing through rebuilding the HV network and also the LV network from Pangai to Ha’ato’u towards Holopeka and all the way towards the top of Foa island. The high voltage lines should be in place shortly after the end of next week.
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