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The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative late this afternoon said rolling outages have been averted, for now, due to the repair of its third-largest generating unit at Port Allen.
“Rolling outages were a possibility, but that’s been avoided for the time being,” said KIUC’s Chief of Operations, Brad Rockwell in a news release.
Rolling outages this evening and tomorrow are unlikely, but still a possibility, according to KIUC, especially if overcast weather persists on Wednesday. If necessary, members will experience rolling outages in 30-minute increments, but no schedule will be published ahead of time.
The KIUC this morning asked its members to conserve energy and practice voluntary load reductions due to the unexpected lack of availability of several large generating units.
Repairs at KIUC’s largest and third-largest generators at Kapaia Power Station and Port Allen, respectively, were underway. The Green Energy Team biomass plant is also under repair, and not expected back online until next week.
KIUC had also said rolling outages early this afternoon might be necessary to manage the the temporarily reduced generation capacity.
“On a normal sunny day, we probably wouldn’t need to take these actions,” said KIUC’s Chief of Operations Brad Rockwell in an earlier news release. “We could run comfortably on our solar resources during the day and count on stored solar to get us through the evening peak. However, due to today’s weather conditions, our solar facilities aren’t producing adequately to cover the load and aren’t storing enough energy to supply us through the evening.”
Rockwell noted that the situation is exacerbated by additional load created by the lack of production from residential and commercial rooftop solar systems.
The weather forecast for Kauai today was mostly cloudy, with scattered thunderstorms, due to a stalled cold front to the northwest. Clouds and showers are expected to continue over Kauai County and Oahu through the middle of the week.
Earlir today, KIUC was maximizing generation from smaller conventional units, hydro plants and solar facilities.
The public is encouraged to follow KIUC’s Facebook page for updates.
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