Posted at 8:21 p.m., Thursday, October 19, 2006
HECO to hire consultant for outage review
By Rick Daysog
Advertiser Staff Writer
During briefing before the state Public Utilities Commission today, Tom Joaquin, HECO senior vice president of operation, said the utility has retained Idaho-based Power Engineers to complete a report on the outage and deliver it to the PUC by December.
HECO also said it will hold a public briefing at the state Capitol on Monday at 2 p.m.
"All of us at HECO apologize and empathize for the inconvenience of the Oct. 15 outage caused," Joaquin said. "We know it was frustrating and sincerely appreciate your understanding."
Sunday's blackout occurred after 6.7-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Big Island. The company said the outage occurred when three of its generators went off line, setting off a chain of events that led the island-wide power outage.
