Questions are being asked about whether last night's major power outages were really necessary.Thousands of homes across the North Island had their power cut off last night -- after Transpower told lines companies to urgently reduce load on their networks.
The national grid operator claims there wasn't enough electricity being generated to keep up with record demand created by cold temperatures.
But Flick Electric and Energy Collective Chief Executive Luke Blincoe told Mike Hosking  it's unclear whether rolling black-outs were really needed, on one of the coldest nights of the year.
“It didn’t appear that generation was anywhere near capacity or wasn’t at capacity, we had a number of units not running through that period that weren’t listed for outage.”
Power was restored to most homes by 9pm.
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