KIUC: Keep conserving power

Kauai Island Utility Cooperative continues to call on members to save energy following Sunday’s islandwide power outage.

Personnel at the Port Allen and Kapaia power plants continue their work to repair down generation units, KIUC said in a press release.

The weather forecast for today — showers are expected throughout the day, “will impact productivity solar facilities,” according to a press release.

KIUC said it was able to provide power to its 32,000 members — 29,000 residential, 3,000 commercial — throughout Tuesday “without the need to implement rolling blackouts.”

It will continue to monitor conditions and it will provide as much advance notice as possible via media and social media if rolling blackouts are again needed.

Sunday afternoon’s outage lasted about two and a half hours. It was blamed on a cable that failed at the Kapaia generating unit, which tripped off-line on Sunday but may be back in service by the end of this week.

Although power was restored and grid operations were maintained during Sunday’s evening peak usage period, rolling blackouts were necessary late in the evening and throughout the Monday. Contributing to the shortage of generation were three units at the Port Allen Generating Station that were already out of service for either repair or scheduled maintenance.

KIUC members are asked to limit use of stoves, washers, dryers and air conditioners.

KIUC last had an islandwide power outage in November. That one lasted about 90 minutes due to a trip at the Kapaia station.

Before that, there was an islandwide outage on Sept. 10, 2017. There were two blackouts that day. One at 10:25 a.m. which lasted for about 80 minutes due to a trip at the Kapaia site. The second occurred at 12:45 p.m., which lasted for 40 minutes, due to loss of power from the Green Energy biomass plant, which resulted in a trip at the Port Allen station.