Niue undergoes power rationing after lightning strikes affects power supply over the weekend

Due to the lightning strikes experienced last Friday evening, the island experienced power outages throughout the weekend. 

Telecom and the Power team were working to restore the power last Saturday to the Sekena site which suffered extensive damage to its power equipment. 

On Saturday evening, the Niue power team had to turn the power off for the southern side due to an unexpected fault that occurred to one of the generators. 

The power was then restored for the southern side the following Sunday morning. However, Niue Power urged the public to conserve power whenever possible as they work over the following weeks to restore the battery and solar system. 

Due to the high usage of power experienced on the island on Sunday, the Niue Power team scheduled a power cut to some parts of the island which included areas from Halaika to Tafalalo. 

The power was later restored at 6:30pm last night for the whole island. 

At 6:20am this morning, Niue Power reiterated the importance of conserving power.

“If the load continues to increase we will have no choice but to ration supply.”

At 10:50am this morning, Niue Power updated since the total load is not reducing they will now turn off areas from Meleane Lui to Talikifea Alofi North. Power will also go off to the old Fale Fono.

At 11:30am, they further notified that they will turn the airport area, Fualahi and Huihui off for now.

At 12pm, another notification went out that power will go off from Avatele, Kauhi to Hakupu. 

Niue Power is still awaiting parts to repair their solar and battery system which is currently offline. They are also awaiting parts of their backup generator and they are expecting the parts to arrive at the end of next week. 

Niue Power apologises for the inconvenience and asks for everyone’s cooperation to conserve and minimise the use of power. 

Television Niue and Radio Sunshine also experienced damage to its transmitters over the weekend. 

Radio Sunshine 88.6 FM is currently offline while 91 FM covers most parts of the Northern and Alofi areas and not the southern side. 

BCN technicians are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible and ask for the patience of customers until then.