One of the latest conclusions from investigations into what caused last year's islandwide electrical failure is that shortcomings in Hawaiian Electric Co.'s training programs may have played a role, but that the company acted reasonably and in the public's interest on Oct. 15, 2006.

A report by the state consumer advocate found that shortcomings in training may have prolonged the amount of time it took to restore service to customers after powerful earthquakes rattled the Islands.

But Consumer Advocate Catherine Awakuni also said that HECO should not be assessed penalties.

"The HECO companies' training programs for plant and system operators lack formalized testing, practice simulation, certification, re-qualification and record- keeping," Awakuni said in an Aug. 24 filing with the state Public Utilities Commission, which is investigating the causes of the blackout.

"(This) may have contributed to the HECO and MECO power outages, and may have delayed the restoration of power on O'ahu and Maui."

The power failure, triggered by 6.7 and 6.0 magnitude earthquakes off the coast of the Big Island, left more than 291,000 HECO customers without electricity for about 15 hours.

About 1,400 customers have filed claims on O'ahu for problems that resulted from the blackout, such as spoiled food or damaged electronic equipment.

FOCUS ON THE FUTURE

HECO spokeswoman Lynne Unemori said the company is awaiting the outcome of the PUC's investigation before it considers paying for any damage.

One year after the event, the consumer advocate and HECO continue to assess ways of avoiding such failures in the future.

In HECO's 116-year history, last year's blackout was the first time that generator problems cut power to the entire island. The four previous islandwide power failures were the result of problems on the utility's transmission lines.

HECO officials said they have taken steps to prevent islandwide blackouts if similar earthquakes were to hit the Islands in the future.

HECO has implemented a number of technical fixes to its generators, such as disabling an automatic shutdown mechanism that helped trigger the blackout.

It also has provided additional training for staffers for earthquake scenarios and has initiated studies on how to better restore electricity to customers and quicken the process of restarting its generators once they go offline.

Even before the quake, plant operators were required to undergo rigorous training programs throughout their careers, Unemori said.

BEEFED-UP TRAINING

She said the company plans to implement a computer-based simulation training program for employees of HECO's system operations to prepare them for future problems.

Unemori noted that the company recently received PUC approval to build a $130 million, 110-megawatt generating plant at Campbell Industrial Park.

The new plant, which will go online in 2009, not only increases HECO's generating capacity but will include machinery to restart generators in case of blackouts. Those capabilities would reduce the time it takes to restart a generator from three to four hours to about an hour.

HECO also is working with independent power producer Kalaeloa Partners to see if it can use its generators to power up HECO's system during blackouts, Unemori said.

FALSE READINGS

The consumer advocate's filing is based on an $85,000 report by Kansas-based engineering consultant Sega Inc.

Sega agreed with many of the findings of a $64,000 report in December by HECO's Idaho-based consultants, Power Engineers Inc.

Both Sega and Power Engineers said that safety mechanisms attached to the company's two largest generators — an automatic lockout mechanism and fluid-level-sensing mercury switches — set off the islandwide blackout.

According to the consulting companies, 20- to 30-year-old, manufacturer-installed switches in HECO's largest generators — the 142-megawatt Kahe 5 and Kahe 6 units — gave false readings.

The switches are designed to shut down a generator automatically when fluid is dangerously low, preventing damage to the generator.

On Oct. 15, the shaking of the earthquake caused the switches to indicate that fluid was low when, in fact, it was not.

"The trips of Kahe 5 and 6 created a cascade from which HECO had insufficient generating resources available to recover," Awakuni said.

SWITCHING TO MANUAL

According to Unemori, HE-CO has since disabled the automatic shutdown. Now, any lock-outs of the generators must be done manually, she said.

Unemori said the company also is studying its low-frequency tripping scheme to better deal with power failures.

After the Oct. 15 quakes, HECO automatically cut power to some customers to balance the system, in a process known as "load-shedding."

The load-shedding was triggered when HECO's computers sensed that its generators were operating at low frequencies, which could permanently damage the massive devices. A damaged generator could result in blackouts lasting several days, if not weeks.

Unemori said any changes to HECO's load-shedding scheme require feedback from the PUC. If HECO's load-shedding threshold is set too low, customers would end up seeing more disruptions to their service.

"If we initiate load-shedding earlier, people on O'ahu may see more frequent outages," she said.

Reach Rick Daysog at rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.