"We're doing everything we can..."

re: Transpower CEO Dr Patrick Strange...

Do executives and politicians realise that we all know this doesn't actually mean anything anymore?

These rolling power cuts - what a joke. Any forced cuts like this should automatically trigger a clause in remuneration contracts stating no bonuses to be paid for a year.. even if it's only 1 hour of outages.

The smartest thing I've heard John Banks say was in the paper today. He called for Dr Strange to donate a week's salary to the Auckland City Mission as a peace offering to the city.

Of course, when you're making over $15,000 a week you need to keep you wine cellar stocked.

come on Rob, that transformer was only 38 years old... no one could ever have guessed it might fail

can't wait for winter...

power on

It's absolutely common for heavy industry equipment (especially stuff without moving parts like transformers) to be in operation for decades in near new condition. It's because all competent companies have scheduled or predictive maintenance systems in place.

They use the '38 years old' line to seed the idea in people's head that it must be near death - as a semi-excuse when the reality is, with proper maintenance, it should function as good - if not better (due to more modern technology/parts) than when it was first made.

Fonterra don't piss around with the critical path in their milk processing facilities. Holcim don't piss around with the drying kilns in their cement making facilities... but we're supposed to believe that Transpower is doing everything they can?

It is in-house incompetence, pure and simple.

(from my time working with the largest sole automation company in the world)

R

I'm not sure that Transpower's PM schedules are necessarily incorrect (no visibility on that and even a good reliability-centred maintenance strategy still sees failures), but the fact that the redundancy in the system is so small (single asset goes and significant power cut ensues) does make me wonder exactly how they're costing that risk.
Building greater redundancy ain't cheap but the risk impact is huge, and the frequency of failure seems high as well.

I am aware that some things are built to last (wot a wonderful concept - what happened there)... but when it comes to power and our power company types mismanagement of our infrastructure I have little faith

what was it last time a rivet or something?

perhaps we need less roads and more power investent

Also, i blame the RMA

Large NZ orgs in-general have a poor track-record of maintaining global standards.

Lol re: the rivet... I forgot about that one ha ha. Having to force cuts is one thing, but random breakdowns are sometimes hard to avoid. This scenario now is down to lack of foresight and/or being cheap-ass.

It was a D shackle wasnt it?

I read a good piece on the power supply issue, particularly transmission but cant find the thing.

Basically the power lines companies expected more local production in areas so cut back on the national grid (which doesn't necessarily relate to this issue) then with issues getting consents for local stations the importance of national grid is up again.

The comment in the article was also that they cannot afford lot of built in redundancy so they concentrate on a) not getting *too many* failures and b) fixing those failures as quickly as possible.

I think we have mixed issues here, do we want cheap power or reliable power? All these people getting on their high horse need to think about their expectations.

Absolutely - all netwrok asset management these is explicitly a risk/cost balancing act. I do question how well that risk has been costed though given the size of the impact and the frequency.

wasn't privatisation supposed to deliver to us greater efficiencies?

no NR greater profits to stakeholders

which seems to be at the cost of infrastructure investment in those privatised industries (speaking generally)

err was it privatised?

exactly. Transpower operates in the ONE part of the electricity network that is still 100% Govt owned.
In fact, the ONE time I rang talkback radio (Laws on Radio Live about 2 years ago) was to have a go at him for railing about how the Govt should re-nationalise the entire electricity network after a Transpower fault fuxored up the Auckland supply. And I'm pretty sure he was in Government when Bradford did all that!

strictly speaking, no but it is an SOE and as such part of that whole 80's thing of delivering greater efficiencies to the consumer



http://www.transpower.co.nz/role

right and you remember how well telecom and rail worked when they were govt departments right?

its not about efficiency so much as measurement, accountability and transparency.

Things fail, auckland has been growing swiftly, power usage is increasing and they were already upgrading the area that failed.

Hardly the end of the world, we have a site that get power disruptions all the time, we deal with it.

If some small business operator isnt going to pay a couple hundred bucks for some battery back up of important bits like computers and phones then dont expect the power company to invest millions in redundancy (and put the price of electricity to compensate).

and an obit on the founder of electricorp

http://www.classiccarmuseum.co.nz/obituary.html

oh this old chestnut... that was then... and this is now - do you think if these industries had been kept as they were they'd still be as inefficient as they were?

you know fonterra wouldn't exist if sail was the only way to get their product to market....

: yawn :

if you didnt want to drag up that *old chestnut* then why did you start with the whole (incorrect) privatisation thing?

You appear to be the one living in the past.

apologies, it was NR.

I am as guiltyt as NR on the privitisation line - most power companies are SOE's which as far as they seem to behave is as good as being privately owned

I miss the past, simpler less efficent times

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10555272



Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

I wonder what is happening to the american car manufacturers...

same article



half fill or half empty?

the point I wished to make, and it is still relevant to this issue bob, is that the reforms of the 80's and 90's ought to have NOT brought about this result, according to the government propaganda of the time in selling it to the electorate

the greater efficiencies appear to be in hoovering up on the billing cycle and awarding fat boardroom salaries and bonuses to SOE and privatised utility executives alike

really, so you thnk that a govt department wouldnt be subject to failures and under investment.

which existing govt dept do you base this on NR?

Hospitals?
CYPS?
The Police?

Not to put down people who work hard but theyre hardly examples of efficiency OR perfect service records.

Im not sure that anyone promised that there would be no black outs under privatisation, in fact i find it highly unlikely. The fact that people like you are getting so up in arms about a 2 hour power cut seems to illustrate that years of good service have raised expectations fairly high under the current service provider/system.

An interesting statement (and I'd like to know if that's based on an actual knowledge of their break-fix policy or just the author's own ass-pull policy) that doesn't quite get the other side right.

If Transpower run like the other network asset managers I've worked with, they will be running a cost analysis over that stuff - is it more expensive to prevent it or let it happen occassionally and respond? The question is, what are they using as the cost input to that? If it's only their own cost (lost revenue from no power going out the GXP) then I question whether that should actually be expanded by legislation or simple Ministerial direction to include (at some level) the cost to their customers (who in a fully-private ACT paradise would be claiming those costs back from Transpower).

we've been lead to the expectations we hold of our service providers by those very service providers - their PR bites them in the arse

living in todays world we know that if things go wrong you're fucked - refer any telco's call centre when things go wrong and I assume many other businesses

hmm my experience has shown me that SOE's would perish pretty fast if they were opened up to proper commercial competition. An example would be, its a political hot potato when a SOE wants to get rid of some staff (redundancies). The minister will get involed, its a freakin red tape coal walking nightmare.

Private co - will walk you out the day they decide you're on the not wanted list.

thats just one example, I've also known people that have worked for NZ40 companies, then have gone into SOE's, and been amazed at how backwards they are.

Even work I ws doing in NZ, was taken up far faster by private/public listed and govt depts, than SOES.

Oh and sorry bob, the way I quoted that makes it look like you said it, when in fact you only quoted it.

I care not for the capitalist dogma of any and all compettion is good

I just want to be able to trust that our 'vital' services are in good hands and that profit is not the reason they exisit but rather they provide the infrastructure and social services that we as a nation deem right for ourselves

Im not sure customers would be able to claim refunds except for extraordinary situations.

Look at the telecommunications industry for an example.

The comment in that article is general enough to be valid though slightly pointless. Of course there are going to be outages and of course they will try to respond asap.

Not sure about the cost accounting but i assume with as much political interest as power supply gets they would be somewhat sensitive to outages and pissing the constituents off.

And presumedly then lose a bunch of money through the Employment Court for not following legislated dismissal procedures?

How do you/we decide what is right? Some people want triple redundancy and some people dont want to pay 3 times the price for it.

Some people want health care over power supply and some people want less roads, more public transport. The *idea* behind assigning a cost and a profit (lets be realistic here, a 16% profit on its assets is hardly raking it in) is that options for govt expenditure can be weighed up. This is besides the fact that the more money the govt makes in dividends the more it has to spend on other things.

I really dont understand the rationale of failing to account for the costs of providing a service whether it is govt, ppp or private organisations.

Its easy to criticise on the side lines eh.

On the dividend bit, I quite like that Transpower aren't paying any to the Govt for the next two or three years - all plowed back into capital investment.

that is a weak defence - in fact its no defence

comparing a commercially driven SOE to crown agencies that have fixed budgets and are socially focussed (and are notoriously under-funded, bottomless pits) is not relevant to the discussion escept inasmuch as hospitals, doctors' surgeries, clinics etc. were affected detrimentally by the power cut too

it's apples and pears

the point is they have failed by the terms of their own mission statement and a 2 hour blackout has had cost repercussions to a wide number of people in one of the most densely populated and most affluent regions of the country and it's not the first time is it?

see current mass redundancies for an example of flushing out the "list of unwanted"

I must say tho, I dunno what its like in NZ at the moment, but where I am, organisations are laying people off left and right.. and getting rid of mostly dead wood, using the current crisis as an excuse.

correct me if I have my info wrong, but a bank over on the shakey isles has posted a record profit, yet just laid off a bunch of workers based on "current economic events"?

I'm not saying that it is good per se, but govt is run very differently to corporate, (I call it circular vs directional), and SOE's seem to be caught in between the cultures of having one foot in each camp.

Stalin would have had the CEO shot.

Fucking democracy.

He would have also shot all the people complaining about it.

When the workers fuck up, it's the CEO's fault. When the CEO fucks up, it's the CEO's fault. You guys want worker's rights? What about worker's responsibilities!

Again, im not sure it is promised anywhere to not have blackouts. Things break, especially when theres hot weather - like the problems with the dry earth around the main lines last time (was that 11 years ago?) which is made worse by the high demand for aircon when its hot.

Im pretty sure we can blame labour for under investment in power eh

The asymmetry exists for both responsibility and reward.