#Providenciales, June 7, 2019 – Turks and Caicos – A series of switch
failures is what led to the two power outages of Tuesday June 4 and Wednesday
June 5; for some residents it meant more than 24-hours without electricity and
for FortisTCI it meant pulling the back-up out of stock.
FortisTCI’s CEO, Eddinton
Powell held a press conference this morning at the headquarter office on
Leeward Highway in Providenciales, where media learned that it was failure of
one switch and then another which caused the two black outs.
“The first outage began on
Tuesday June 4, approximately 8:54 a.m. and service was fully restored to all
customers by 10:37 a.m. This outage was
the result of failed electrical equipment at the main substation. A second outage began on the same day in the
late afternoon at approximately 4:52 p.m., following the failure of another
critical path high voltage switch on the transmission system to the company’s
substations, which serve customers via underground cables.”
Mr. Powell called the
latter switch ‘critical path switch’, responsible for dispatching 35 kV of
electricity; a high voltage switch which would take more work and a longer time
to restore. It is also the switch which
feeds the Grace Bay Substation, which carries electricity to Leeward and
Leeward Palms; all three areas were longest without electricity earlier this
week.
“You just can’t move those
transmission and distribution lines that are connected to that switch. In effect what we had to end up doing, and
this is why it took so long is we had to replace that entire switch. Replacing
that switch, programming the new switch, using heavy equipment and cranes to
move that switch into place because these switches weigh tons. You’ve got to bring in specialty cranes to
move the switch and then that took time to reconnect all of this transmission
and distribution line.”
Mr. Powell confirmed that
no part had to be brought in; that foresight on the part of FortisTCI ensured
that the company was ready to respond to what was an unexpected technical
failure.
“I want to ensure all of
our customers that this country has a very good utility, not withstanding the
incidents we’ve had,” Mr. Powell also shared that, “In the case of the last
outages where our customers were, in some cases, out for 24-hours, we had to
replace that entire equipment and we had that equipment in stock. We did not have to bring that in and that is
another indication of how well you plan for these kinds of things because you
can have critical equipment in stock for years and it doesn’t move but until
you that time when you need it, you need to have it and we had it.”
Public reaction to the
prolonged power outage was varied, but comments on social media mainly
lambasted the electricity company for the system failure, the inconveniences it
was causing and a lag in communication with the general public.
The CEO apologised,
thanked the public for its patience, thanked the team for a job well done and
repeated that the Turks and Caicos has a very good utility company in FortisTCI.
Forty staff members worked
to restore the electricity, which while off for a full day in Grace Bay
impacted households, schools, tourism operations and businesses.
Electricity was restored on June 5, 2019 at 7:46 p.m. “without further incident.”
#magneticmedianews
#provopowerouttage
#fortistci