Student surge during free power hour knocks out network

Dunedin students on free power deals are causing extreme peaks – leaving them cold and in the dark – and costing the lines company several hundred dollars to fix. Aurora said this winter crews had attended more than 25 outages in Dunedin's student area caused by households overloading their electrical supply. It warned free power periods were causing high demand in the area between 9pm and midnight on weekdays, and electricity networks were not built to manage the spikes. Consumer NZ Powerswitch manager Paul Fuge told RNZ's Checkpoint it was unusual to have such a large group of people in one area all doing the same thing. "This is an issue that's cropped up several times over the years in Dunedin where clusters of student flats are getting on the free hour plans and then going nuts during the free hour and basically blowing their fuses," he said.