Officials from Hawaiian Electric Co., Maui Electric Co. and Hawaii Electric Light Co. on the Big Island will answer questions Monday about the power outages on those islands following Sunday's earthquakes.

Tom Joaquin, HECO senior vice president of operations, MECO President Ed Reinhardt and HELCO President Warren Lee will discuss the causes behind the blackouts at 2 p.m. at the state Capitol Auditorium.

Utility officials will also discuss how they tried to restore power to its customers following the blackouts.

"We know that the public has questions and wants more information about what happened and it's an opportunity for us to share ... what steps were taken to restore power," said HECO spokeswoman Lynne Unemori.

The outage was triggered by a 6.7 earthquake off the coast of the Big Island. Several generators on O'ahu shut down because of the shaking, setting off a chain of events that led to the outage.

Monday's briefing follows an appearance of HECO officials Thursday before the state Public Utilities Commission. HECO said it hired an Idaho-based consulting firm, Power Engineers, to probe the causes of the outage.

Speakers at Monday's briefing also will include Tom Simmons, HECO vice president of power supply; Chris Hirai, HECO vice president of special projects; and Dan Giovanni, HECO manager of power supply operations and maintenance.

Reach Rick Daysog at rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.