In recent weeks we have experienced a number of unplanned outages including one islandwide outage. We want to take this opportunity to apologize to our customers for the repeated loss of service and offer some insight into the nature and cause of the outages and our plans to minimize the number of outages in the future. Although the causes of the outages vary, the Company has taken steps to investigate each incident and reduce the number of outages going forward.
The recent islandwide outage on October 05, 2016 was caused by a strong ground fault, believed to be spawned by a vehicular accident. This fault caused our protection systems to shut-down two of our core generation sets. Given our small size (in geography and generation load) faults that occur on our electrical grid have a significant impact on our entire system. For example, a car accident in West End can cause the loss of the entire feeder (the line running from West End to the Corito Power Plant) or, worse, the entire station. In addition to the islandwide outage, we experienced several feeder outages due to a lightning storm, a second vehicular incident and two mechanical failures of our generating sets.
What can be done to avoid outages?
Our priority is to minimize the potential of unplanned future outages. ANGLEC is already taking steps to address both human error potential and system protection concerns. Although our power system is designed to be resistant to cascading failures, in some circumstances it is ultimately unavoidable due to engineering and technological limitations, especially under small grid and island conditions. Despite the inevitable nature of such incidents, the frequency of such outages can be minimized. Below are a number of steps ANGLEC is taking to minimize the number of outages.
Transmission and Distribution
1. Implementing a “Smart Grid” system including the installation of auto-reclosers.
2. Upgrading earthing systems in lightning prone areas.
3. Installing additional lighting protection devices.
4. Continue the routine trimming of trees that grow into high voltage lines.
5. Implementing various IT solutions to enhance customer service and timely responses to outages.
Generation
1. Continuing the high levels of quality maintenance on our generation fleet. Although this is routine, our current fleet of generators are now of considerable age. This means, higher and more intricate maintenance levels.
2. Upgrading and improving our station protection systems.
3. Modernizing our power plant equipment and control systems.
4. Installing additional generation capacity. In 2016 we added 2 additional megawatts in backup capacity. We plan to expand our base load capacity by an additional 5 megawatts in 2017/2018.
5. Implementing additional alternative energy solutions (wind and solar).
6. Conducting a comprehensive audit of our generating assets to better understand the current conditions, risks and implementing any required enhancements.
We understand that our customers want information as quickly as possible which is why we are also working to share more information through mediums such as Facebook and other social media platforms. We encourage Customers to “like” our Facebook page (AnguillaElectricity) to get the latest news and updates on outages. We will continue expand the usage of our social media accounts to inform consumers of our outages and other relevant company updates.
– Press Release
(Published without ediiting by The Anguillian newspaper.)
