Hawaiian Electric may implement rolling outages throughout the Big Island this morning and possibly this evening after an equipment failure over the weekend.
According to a HECO statement, the provider’s Hill 5 steam unit unexpectedly tripped offline Saturday. At the same time, HECO’s Puna steam unit at CT-1 combustion turbine are under repair, while its Keahole CT-1 unit is undergoing an annual overhaul until the end of April, leading to a combined energy shortfall of about 62 megawatts.
Meanwhile, Hamakua Energy, HECO’s largest independent power producer, is also offline, reducing the grid’s capacity by another 60 megawatts.
To cover this shortfall, HECO initiated 30-minute outages Sunday night between 8:54 p.m. and 9:59 p.m., which affected 21,557 customers.
Further temporary outages could be executed today to prevent a greater loss of power. The scope and duration of such outages will be determined based on the amount of electric demand that needs to be reduced.
Customers are there for advised to reduce energy consumption today, particularly during the hours of peak demand between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Conservation is recommended through the end of April, when the Keahole unit comes back online.
Conservation and rolling outage alerts and updates will be posted on the company’s social media accounts on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). The Hawaii County Civil Defense also will send emergency alerts through local radio and its Everbridge emergency notification system.