{"id":18189,"date":"2026-08-11T05:14:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18189"},"modified":"2026-08-11T05:14:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T17:14:58","slug":"student-surge-during-free-power-hour-knocks-out-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18189","title":{"rendered":"Student surge during free power hour knocks out network"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Dunedin students on free power deals are causing extreme peaks &#8211; leaving them cold and in the dark &#8211; and costing the lines company several hundred dollars to fix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Aurora said this winter crews had attended more than 25 outages in Dunedin&#8217;s student area caused by households overloading their electrical supply.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"pt-4 mb-16\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"h-screen max-h-[calc(10rem*var(--base-multiplier))] min-h-[calc(6rem*var(--base-multiplier))]\">\n<section class=\"@container\/queue-media relative w-full h-full bg-surface-muted\" aria-label=\"Audio player - Free power deals overloading network and causing outages\">\n<div class=\"flex h-full\">\n<div class=\"@[16.25em]\/queue-media:block bg-theme-primary relative hidden aspect-square h-full flex-none overflow-hidden\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"absolute h-full w-full object-cover\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--G_iieSFu--\/c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,h_100,q_auto,w_100\/v1671591260\/4LGF99X_checkpoint_internal_cover_png?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" aria-hidden=\"true\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"@container\/queue-media-content h-full w-full\">\n<div class=\"flex h-full w-full flex-grow flex-col justify-between overflow-hidden p-8\">\n<div class=\"text-foreground-primary flex flex-col gap-4 light-theme\">\n<h2 class=\"order-2 mb-4 text-pretty line-clamp-2 text-sm\"><span class=\"block\">Free power deals overloading network and causing outages<\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"order-1 flex items-baseline gap-8 text-xs leading-snug\"><span class=\"font-sans-semibold line-clamp-1\">Checkpoint<\/span><span class=\"whitespace-nowrap tabular-nums text-xs text-foreground-primary\"><time datetime=\"2026-08-10\">10 August 2026<\/time><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"flex items-center justify-between gap-4\">\n<div class=\"@[6.5em]\/queue-media-content:gap-8 flex flex-grow items-center gap-4\"><button class=\"group\/button font-sans-semibold flex-shrink-0 items-center justify-center gap-8 whitespace-nowrap rounded-full border leading-normal flex h-24 w-24 [&amp;&gt;svg]:h-[calc(1.8rem*var(--base-multiplier))] [&amp;&gt;svg]:w-[calc(1.8rem*var(--base-multiplier))] hover:bg-surface-hover hover:text-white dark-theme bg-surface-accent text-foreground-primary border-transparent\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Play Free power deals overloading network and causing outages\"><\/button><\/p>\n<div class=\"@container\/queue-add-button inline-flex w-full\"><button class=\"group\/button font-sans-semibold flex-shrink-0 items-center justify-center gap-8 whitespace-nowrap rounded-full border leading-normal flex gap-[calc(0.5rem*var(--base-multiplier))] px-8 pb-[calc(0.25rem*var(--base-multiplier))] pt-[calc(0.15rem*var(--base-multiplier))] text-sm hover:bg-surface-hover hover:text-white light-theme border-stroke-strong text-foreground-primary bg-transparent hover:border-surface-hover @[4.38em]\/queue-add-button:flex hidden\" type=\"button\" aria-label=\"Queue Free power deals overloading network and causing outages\"><span class=\"inline-flex items-center gap-[calc(0.3rem*var(--base-multiplier))]\"><span class=\"font-sans-normal\">Queue<\/span><\/span><\/button><\/p>\n<div class=\"sr-only\" aria-live=\"polite\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ml-auto flex h-full items-center gap-4\">\n<div class=\"relative -top-4 right-2 h-24 w-24\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Consumer NZ Powerswitch manager Paul Fuge told\u00a0<em class=\"italic\">Checkpoint\u00a0<\/em>it was unusual to have such a large group of people in one area all doing the same thing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;This is an issue that&#8217;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,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;They probably go a little bit silly with it. It&#8217;s like a smorgasbord, it&#8217;s kind of you&#8217;ve paid a set amount and you can eat as much as you want, so you sort of overconsume.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;The problem that the network company will be seeing is students are using more power than they probably would normally. So just because it&#8217;s free they can turn everything on, so they do, and what that means is they kind of blow the fuses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;It&#8217;s the equivalent of putting on 14 1-kilowatt heaters in your house, [that] would basically blow the fuse and that&#8217;s the level they&#8217;re getting to.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Fuge said retailers should warn about over-consumption limits and the pressure on the grid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;It&#8217;s not really a problem in most areas, most places it&#8217;s a good thing because it&#8217;s good for the network to be not overloaded during peak times. This is kind of an extreme case in particular to the students of Dunedin, but they could put reasonable use or fair use clauses in,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"font-serif-text mb-12 leading-normal\">\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;There needs to be a level of reasonableness on both sides so I think it&#8217;s an education thing. So sure, the students want to use as much power as they can and that&#8217;s understandable, but there needs to be limits to that, there&#8217;s some practical, physical constraints on the network for that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dunedin students on free power deals are causing extreme peaks &#8211; leaving them cold and in the dark &#8211; and costing the lines company several hundred dollars to fix. Aurora said this winter crews had attended more than 25 outages in Dunedin&#8217;s student area caused by households overloading their electrical supply. It warned free power [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18190,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18189\/revisions\/18190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}