Ground breaking technology to keep power on

28 November 2007

The snow storm that hit Canterbury in 2006 was the worst weather event to affect the rural Canterbury electricity network in more than three decades. Power supply was cut to thousands of residents.

Since then, Orion has searched the world looking for some kind of technology that would reduce the number of power cuts customers face.

CEO Roger Sutton today launched a ground breaking technology, called the Ground Fault Neutraliser.

“It’s the most significant technological advance for rural power users in 40 years,” Mr. Sutton says.

“The way it works is when a tree or a foreign object hits a power line, the electricity flows down the tree, cutting the power. This new technology, in most cases, stops that from happening and allows the power to keep flowing to customers further along the line.”

Mr Sutton says it’s incredibly significant for farmers, particularly dairy farmers who are increasingly reliant on high tech systems in their milking sheds.

“We feel very excited about the fact that we will be able to deliver a much more reliable electricity supply as well as making things a lot safer for the public.”

“The Australians are also very excited about this new technology as it has huge implications for the prevention of bushfires caused by trees falling on power lines. We’ve already had a lot of interest from Australian power companies.”

Orion will be one of a handful of power companies in the world to use this technology on a wide scale.

The company has been operating the Ground Fault Neutraliser in parts of rural Canterbury for the past six months with very good results.

The system while very smart, won’t be able to stop more than one power cut at a time supplied by a substation, but trials indicate it should reduce the number of interruptions by up to 50%.

The system still requires trees to be kept away from power lines for safety reasons.

“We hope to have this technology incorporated into most of our rural network over the next four years.”

Orion also has broadcast quality footage of the Ground Fault Neutraliser being trialed.


For further information contact:

Roger Sutton
Chief Executive Officer
tel. 03 363 9846
0274 333 632