This indicates that hot weather can be as devastating to power systems as cold weather (Montreal).
This was interesting: "Auckland banks contacted by Reuters were tight-lipped on their plans to deal with the crisis, refusing to comment even on an anonymous basis."
What if the power went down and stayed down nationally for a month? Could they get it back up? In other words, is the production system so dependent on power that a simultaneous national cut-off could make it impossible to re-boot the components of the national system? Without an outside power source, can any power source become someone else's outside power source? Can the dominoes be pushed back up without outside power?
This is from Reuters (Feb. 21). It's on Yahoo. For how long, I don't know.
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Auckland businesses face chaos after power cut
Businesses in New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, on Saturday were facing a chaotic week after the fourth -- and final -- major power cable supplying the central city failed the previous night.
They were told to try to run their operations from outside the inner city next week in the wake of a power crisis that has crippled the hub of the nation's business community.
"While a lot of buildings have their own power supply, the likelihood is that there will be very little business able to be done next week," said Auckland mayor Les Mills.
He said there would be little power available apart from that for emergency services. . . .
Power supply to downtown Auckland on Saturday was about 10 percent of capacity after the last of the four major cables supplying the area collapsed on Friday night.
Mercury Energy said it had repair crews working around the clock, but the central city could be without electricity for up to seven days.
Auckland banks contacted by Reuters were tight-lipped on their plans to deal with the crisis, refusing to comment even on an anonymous basis. . . .
Parts of Auckland were blacked out three times on Friday, but the major blow came in the evening when a 110 kilovolt cable failed, causing major problems for traffic and hundreds of businesses, and leaving residents, restaurant goers and night shift workers in the dark. . . .
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