Ruta Mave: Power outage: Where are the experts?

Does TAU (Te Aponga Uira) have to wait until experts are flown to Rarotonga to assess the situation? Ruta Mave writes.

An expensive and essential machine suddenly stops working, and all production comes to a standstill. No one knows how to fix the machine, so they call in an expert. She goes to the machine, takes out a hammer, and hits it hard. The machine starts working again, business continues, and everyone is happy. The manager is very grateful and offers to pay the expert immediately, she says up to $3,000. “How can that be? You only hit the machine once with the hammer.” To this, the expert replies, “It’s $10 to hit the machine, and $2,990.00 to know where to hit it.”

An expert or specialist is a person who is knowledgeable or skilled in a certain field. We certainly always call on “experts” to assess our needs and help us plan and install very important and essential machines like a new electrical grid so that we can function properly in our daily lives.

So why did we have a power outage three nights in a row, when everyone was cooking, showering, watching TV? It was roughly the same time every night, and it took them three days to correct the problem, maybe the system was overloaded?

Did TAU have to wait until experts were flown to Rarotonga to assess the situation? It didn’t take an expert to see that the system was overloaded. The question is, did they use experts to set up the system in the first place? Were there experts on the island who could have prevented this inconvenience from happening again?

It’s like visiting the Titanic submersible this time last year. Both claim to be indestructible, just like the TAU, who say they have upgraded our outdated power system and it will serve us better.

The old system had never seen three consecutive power outages across the island, and while businesses suffered financial losses because they could not operate and tourists were left in the dark or without dinner, TAU searched for matches to light candles and read the “In Case of Emergency” manual in the office.

Luckily the problem was discovered, the system was set too low for the volume of usage at the time. Who knew how incredible this was? Didn’t anyone take into account that this was high season and there were thousands of tourists on the island, all enjoying long hot showers, while turning on every fan in the room, turning on lights, turning on TVs, charging electronic devices, drying hair dryers, and pumping pool water. Meanwhile, locals were finishing up sports and work, taking showers, feeding children and animals, washing dishes and laundry, and getting ready for the next day.

When the TAU experts spotted this minor anomaly, they turned the dial up to full to ensure they wouldn’t trip the entire national grid just to save a ten-cent fuse. That was a thoughtful afterthought.

The problem is that we always pay experts to decide what works for us when they don’t live here and don’t know what we need. Note that this should be a basic 101 step for setting up a system with excessive seasonal workloads during the winter months.

Aside from the frustration of the power outage, TAU also claimed that it was not responsible for any disruption and damage caused during this upgrade. The power surge caused people’s televisions, phones, kettles and toasters to break.

They said it wasn’t our fault, you should have installed surge protectors on the plugs, now. If TAU knew this new improved system would provide more efficient and powerful power delivery, why didn’t the experts predict this surge and its potential to damage existing appliances? So they could have warned us before the work started?

Now you can’t get your electronics fixed because there are so many broken parts and the technicians are overburdened. They try to fix everything and end up blowing their own fuses.

In-person visits to assess our actual electricity usage are becoming less frequent, so we are being overcharged for “estimates” because, interestingly, they are happy to assume we will be using more electricity than when they have measured it over the past few months, but they fail to apply that logic to how it will affect the entire system. Great.

Another good example of a state-owned enterprise going where no one has gone before, installing and running systems that they did not have the expertise to manage and maintain.

Former Prime Minister Henry Puna announced that we will be self-sufficient by 2020. If we achieve this, at least solar street lights will still work.