Severe weather is continuing to batter the top of the North Island as Cyclone Tam brings heavy rain and strong winds.
Towards Friday, the storm will begin to arrive in Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and the north of the South Island.
What you need to know:
- A large weather system is delivering heavy rain and strong winds to the upper North Island.
- Here’s what you need to know as the bad weather hits.
- Around 25,000 properties had no power overnight in Northland and there are many outages in Auckland too.
- Cellphone towers have been damaged in Northland, landlines are still working. ONE NZ is working on opening up Satellite Text as an option for those with 4G.
- Air New Zealand has cancelled some flights, some ferry services in Auckland are either cancelled or suspended. See here for the ferry specifics.
- Up to 180mm of rain could strike Northland with possible thunderstorms, and strong wind warnings also in place.
- Auckland is experiencing high winds and rain.
- Rain is also forecast to spread into the South Island on Thursday.
- Warnings are in place for motorists using Auckland Harbour Bridge due to strong wind gusts.
Through the middle of the day we are hitting the export cap most days, but we also try to turn on the dishwasher or charge the car at that time because it’s better to use the power than sell to the grid and buy it back later.
We’ve only had it through the summer so I’m curious what the winter will be like.
We get 20c per KWh at a fixed rate, which is much better than some companies that do 10c or less or some don’t pay you at all. We are with SolarEdge, a specialist electricity company that only work with people who have solar or other renewable power (e.g. wind). Apparently they can’t do it in all areas, though.
All in all it will be interesting to pull out a spread sheet after a year and try to work out whether it’s been financially worth it.