Brace for blackouts

[Plex]

BY CAROL MATROO

Several parts of northern Trinidad may experience a dark Christmas if total power is not restored at the Power Generation Company of T&T (PowerGen) by December 23.

PowerGen is one of two companies that supply the country�s main electricity agent, the T&T Electricity Commission (T&TEC), with power. The other is Trinity Power (formerly InnCogen).

Because of a culvert leak and another outage at its Port-of-Spain plant, PowerGen has been forced to reduce its power supply to T&TEC.

On December 17, PowerGen experienced a major technical problem at its Port-of-Spain station which resulted in a significant power reduction at that plant.

T&TEC was therefore forced to shed load in the western peninsula including PoS and environs and as far as Chaguaramas.

In light of this latest development, T&TEC has appealed to its customers to conserve electricity during the peak hours of 6 - 9 pm.

According to T&TEC�s acting corporate communications manager Stephen Martel, the commission was now operating below its peak of over 1,000 megawatts.

Director of legal and regulatory affairs, corporate communications at PowerGen Joy Ramlogan, said out of the four working units, one was affected.

She said operators at the Port-of-Spain plant, which was mainly a steam unit, had detected a leak in the pipes.

Water from the sea flows through the pipe to provide a cooling system. This was critical to keep the unit running at a certain level, Ramlogan said.

Six units usually operated at the Port-of-Spain plant. However, on Sunday, there were four units running with two planned maintenance outages. One had to be taken out of service because of the leak.

PowerGen has plants in Port-of-Spain, Point Lisas and Penal. The company has plans to open two new units at Point Lisas next year.

Ramlogan said PowerGen has already �put full resources forward to correct the problem.�

Martel said that power shortages may be extended to other areas �as we see fit.�

�T&TEC needs the power supplied by the two companies and right now we have to operate with what we have,� he said.

�We are urging the public to minimise the use of electricity during the hours of 6 pm and 9 pm.

�All we are asking is that they use it sparingly during these hours,� Martel said.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news13.html