Generator causes widespread outage

Advertiser Staff

A problem with a powerful generator at Campbell Industrial Park yesterday afternoon caused a power failure that affected 11,000 customers in Waipahu, Waimano, Kaka'ako, Pauoa and Niu Valley, a Hawaiian Electric Co. official said.

The failure occurred at about 2:15 p.m. when one of the generators at Campbell Industrial Park went off-line, said Hawaiian Electric Co. spokesman Fred Kobashikawa. Power was restored at 3:54 p.m., he said.

Kobashikawa said the generator is operated by an independent power provider, AES Hawaii Inc., that sells power to Hawaiian Electric. The generator is one of the bigger ones on O'ahu and it was putting out 180 megawatts, which is a "lot of power," when it went off-line, Kobashikawa said.

"I don't remember the last time we had this kind of a situation," Kobashikawa said. "There are safety measures built in, but it's extremely difficult to have a 100 percent fail-safe system. We're still waiting on the report from the independent power producer as to what caused them to go down."

Kobashikawa said the outage was one of the biggest this year.

As a precautionary measure, officials de-energized some of the circuits in the affected areas, Kobashikawa said. The power was turned back on when the system stabilized, he said.

Kobashikawa said there might have been lingering effects as a result of the power failure, mainly with traffic signals that needed to be reset. Police reported no accidents associated with the outage.