By Prior Beharry
THE Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) was expected to restore electricity by 1 am on Thursday.
This was after a fault in the system at 12.50 pm on Wednesday caused an island-wide blackout in Trinidad.
Tobago, served by the Cove Power Station was unaffected.
A release at 11 pm on Thursday by T&TEC stated that a fault in its system caused the two major Gandhi Village/Union Estate 220 KV (220,000 Volts) lines to trip.
It stated, “This resulted in system instability and caused all the generating machines operated by Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to trip, leading to a loss of supply to all customers in Trinidad.”
The release added, “At approximately 1.30 pm the IPPs were directed to restart their generators.
“Restarting the generators from zero is known as a black start, however, there were some unforeseen delays in completing this process. Restoration of supply commenced at approximately 5 pm with customers in some parts of Penal.”
By 11 pm on Wednesday, T&TEC stated, that the generators and most customers from Penal to Mt Hope were back on supply.
It stated, “Barring unforeseen circumstances, we expect to restore supply to the rest of the island (east, further north and west) by 1 am.
“We again apologise for the extended outage and the aggravated inconvenience caused. T&TEC is mindful of its mandate to provide customers with a safe and reliable supply of electricity and reaffirms its commitment to do so.”
