Previous Story
Problems at 3 power plants trigger outages
|
Posted on Apr 22 2008
Ongoing mechanical repairs at two power plants coupled with an overheating cooling system at another power plant triggered another load shedding yesterday.
The outages started at 12:45pm when the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. took portions of Capital Hill, Kagman, and Papago offline. Power in those areas was back at 2:01pm.
CUC Power Division acting manager Gary P. Camacho said that power production at Power Plant 2 in Lower Base and at Power Plant 4 in Puerto Rico has been limited due to ongoing mechanical repairs in those plants.
In addition, the high temperature yesterday afternoon activated the protective alarms in the cooling system at Power Plant I in Lower Base, Camacho said.
These, he said, prompted the operators to reduce the power production.
“The power plants were not able to generate the required electrical power to adequately meet island demands, therefore load shedding was implemented,” he said.
From 2pm to 4pm, the outage affected the entire Feeder 7 circuit or the Lower Base industrial area, north to Tanapag, Achugao, San Roque, As Matuis, and Marpi.
From 4pm to 5:45pm, the blackout was in the Chalan Kiya area.
Camacho said that due to the Commonwealth Ports Authority’s inability to self-generate at this time, the contingent outage schedule was changed.
For that reason, the acting manager said, the outage was routed to the Kiya 1 second partial or the Lower Dandan, Isley Field, CPA, and As Perido areas.
The outage at Kiya 4 second partial or the areas of Mt. Carmel south to portions of Chalan Kanoa was rescheduled earlier at 5pm instead of 6pm.
Camacho said that repairs at Power Plant 2 are expected to be completed last night.
“As expected, CUC staff members continue to work diligently to resolve these problems,” Camacho added.
On Monday, a leaking pipe in Engine No. 8 that had to be secured to the turbo charger caused an outage lasting less than an hour in some areas on the island.
