The lone electricity provider in Grand Cayman warned Tuesday morning of potential power outages throughout the island during the next four days as the result of a temporary lack of generation capacity due to equipment failure.
Caribbean Utilities Company said engineers are on site in the largest of the three Cayman Islands trying to restore engines to full working condition, according to a news release issued by the utility company. But CUC said various parts of Grand Cayman may experience temporary outages throughout the rest of the work week.
CUC said in the event of outages, the provider will try to limit those failures to one hour per area, where possible.
A spokeswoman for CUC didn’t immediately return calls Tuesday morning seeking comment. No further information was immediately available.
Tuesday morning’s warning comes on the heels of an islandwide power outage on the morning of 25 July that crippled businesses and inconvenienced residents for several hours. That outage, which hit all areas of Grand Cayman, was later blamed on a fault in the transmission system in the Hydesville Substation in West Bay.
Andrew Small, vice president of transmission for Caribbean Utilities Company, said after the 25 July outage that the problem at the substation in West Bay triggered several of the utility company’s generating units to shut down, resulting in power failures across the island, but apparently causing no lasting damage to the system’s infrastructure. Most customers had power restored later that afternoon.
“Islandwide outages such as what was experienced [Wednesday] occur from time to time on small island power systems such as in Grand Cayman,” Mr. Small said on 26 July. “As a result of the restoration to date there appears to be no major equipment damage from the outage which will impact customer reliability.”
CUC, which began operations as the only electricity utility in Grand Cayman in 1966, has a generating capacity of 151 megawatts and serves more than 26,000 commercial and residential customers on the island. A record peak load of 102.086 megawatts was experienced on 3 June, 2010.
Editor’s note: This story has been augement from an earlier version to additional information.
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