How long do the outages last?

It depends on the severity of the event, but Vector tries to keep the outage in each area as short as possible – aiming for no longer than four hours at a time in each location. But this will depend on the level of savings required by Transpower. Vector does this by organising a series of outages, beginning in one location for a set period, then moving to the next and the next, until Transpower says the rolling outages can end. Because demand varies from day-to-day, the time and extent of outages notified to customers will be approximate.