For the fifth time in a few months, more than twenty households in Egmond aan Zee have to do without electricity. Grid operator Liander is carrying out work on the electricity cables in Zuiderstraat, but the residents are fed up. “We always receive a standard letter that we are being closed, but they don’t seem to be able to solve the problem,” said resident Sjon Zuurbier.
Due to the work, it is the umpteenth time that residents are without electricity and they are now done with that. “We can’t do anything anymore”, sighs Jet van Santen, resident of the Zuiderstraat. “Everything works with electricity for me and nothing works, that’s just very annoying.”
Resident Sjon Zuurbier thinks that the power has to be cut off for maintenance ‘not even the worst thing’. “I am more concerned with the communication towards us. We would like to know how things are going, but you can call until you weigh an ounce and no one will get hold of. That is very unfortunate.”
Hitch in the cable
Where the hitch is, is the big question. According to network manager Liander, there has been a failure in public lighting since January, as a result of which lampposts remain lit continuously. A number of times have already been searched for the origin of the malfunction, but the problem has not yet been found.
“We have solved malfunctions in previous times, but they turned out not to be responsible for the problem. That is of course extremely annoying for the residents,” said a spokesperson for Liander. “The fact that it all takes so long is also because you have to request permits from the municipality for every new failure, for example to close the road.” He is ‘high hopes’ that it will be ready after today.
Deprecated
Residents suspect that the power cable that runs from the electricity house to the street is too old and has too little capacity. “Liander keeps his lips tight, but technicians have told me that the cable is very outdated and needs to be replaced. As a neighborhood we therefore want a new cable,” says Zuurbier.
Liander tells NH Nieuws that it is ‘indeed an old cable’, but that it does not matter for ‘this type of failure’.
Residents wanted text and explanation today, but the employees of Liander, who were working in the street, were not pleased. Check out the images below (text continues below the video):
Liander apologizes for the poor communication: “The communication from us did not go as it should. When people call the telephone number, they get in touch with our fault center. This normally contacts someone who is responsible for the cable and informs the caller about this. That did not go well here, for which we sincerely apologize.”
The spokesperson ‘understands the unpleasant feeling among residents’. Because the company works with an automated letter system, the residents received the same standard letter every time. “But if you send the same letter to a group of residents for the third, fourth or fifth time in a short period of time, a bell should ring.”
According to the spokesperson, the letters should have provided more information. He says he will ‘seek out how we can improve this in the future.’