T&TEC clueless why Tobago plunged in darkness

Tobago was plunged into darkness on Friday night just after 10 pm with the Trinidad and Tobago Commission (T&TEC) unable to say on Saturday what caused the island-wide blackout.

Annabelle Brasnell, Corporate Communications Manager at T&TEC on Saturday confirmed the entire island was affected by the power outage with some areas in darkness for more than an hour while the electricity was returned in half an hour to other areas.

Brasnell told Newsday Tobago she was unable to say what caused the outage then, but that T&TEC was working on it.

On Saturday night, residents in some areas reported that power outages were continuing and that reports were that T&TEC was load shedding because of problems with its feeders and that that had caused the island-wide blackout the night before.

In October last year, when power outages also occurred at a time when the Cabinet was meeting in Tobago, Stuart Young, then minister in the Ministry of Attorney General and Legal Affairs, announced that the island would soon have an improved electricity supply.

Speaking at the post Cabinet meeting at the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort in Lowlands, Young said that he was informed that there were difficulties with the battery backup system at the Cove Eco-Industrial and Business Park which caused the blackout then.

“I am not a technical person when it comes to know the exact wattage. I have been in a position where we have looked at it and we are looking to increasing it by at least one extra turbine, I don’t want to get into the figures, I don’t want to get it wrong, but we are looking at increasing the amount,” he said adding:

“T&TEC is currently working with the infrastructure that is involved and at the Cabinet level, at the standing committee of energy, we are looking at increasing the power generation capacity in Tobago. So Tobago will get more increases as we look at attracting the investment of infrastructure, hotels to Tobago.”

He also said then that Government was considering the introduction of solar energy but such an initiative was expensive.

“Right now, the technology and cost put forward to us is something that as a Government we are looking at and evaluation, the initial cost put forward to us does not equate at a cheaper cost than what it is currently and what we can do with our gas resources and what we can do with turbine technology to utilise our natural gas resources.

“Tenders have gone out and evaluation of the tenders has taken place, so an award should be coming through in a very short period of time,” he said then.

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