PHILIPSBURG--A number of areas were still affected by power outages on Tuesday morning, but GEBE said in a press release Tuesday night that technicians had resolved the cause of the problem. The news follows widespread outages experienced Sunday and Monday, with all districts having been affected on Monday.
GEBE said on Monday night that the company had been forced to load-shed because of “technical issues with several of the power generators” at its Cay Bay power plant starting from Sunday. The load-shedding affected areas for one to two hours. Several reports of outages on Saturday also reached The Daily Herald.
According to information released Tuesday night, technicians at the plant had to implement load-shedding measures the same day due to mechanical issues with one of the oldest and smallest generators. They initially had started working on resolving mechanical challenges that developed with DG-18 on Sunday morning around 5:00am, which resulted in load-shedding on Sunday and Monday.
Once the generator developed a mechanical failure, a cool-down period was necessary prior to technicians starting to work on it, for the health and safety of the workers.
Removal and assembly of the failed parts took place within an eight-hour period. Once completed, the unit was put through a running programme to ensure that there was no sudden loading or stress on the newly installed components.
The last cable came back online around 9:30pm Monday. Power generators DG-7 and DG-19 are currently offline due to a major overhaul of those units. Technical crews are working with two crews from the engine manufacturer to reduce downtime of the generators currently undergoing the scheduled overhaul.
Priority has been given to get DG-19 back online as soon as possible, as DG-7 requires more time. DG-19 is one of the newest engines and it will be approximately two weeks before it comes back online. The technical work on DG-19 has to be done at preset intervals to avoid engine failure that could lead to engine damage.
An overhaul of a generator normally takes four to five weeks, but considering the additional manpower, technicians are aiming for three to four weeks.
GEBE also has technicians working at night when demand is low to make some minor repairs to generators that would not affect electricity demand and supply, the company said.
“Load-shedding becomes necessary when the production capacity cannot meet the load demand of consumers. In order to have a stable electricity production network, it is imperative to switch out some areas in order to be able to have a stable system. If this does not happen, this would lead to a complete blackout.
“Because the country has one power plant, this is a challenge faced by small island developing states. Larger countries have several power plants which can act as a back-up should one or more units go offline.
“In the future, if NV GEBE loses its largest production unit DG-19 (once back online) and another large unit goes offline, the chances are that load-shedding would be implemented as a measure. The outage period for load-shedding is shared throughout the districts and is usually one hour to 90 minutes,” GEBE’s press release concluded.
According to a company social-media post on Tuesday morning, the affected areas were Cay Hill, Pelican, Cole Bay, Madame Estate, Arch Road, Sucker Garden and the Middle Region entrance.
