Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro (Hydro) reports the Island Interconnected System has been experiencing electricity loads this evening that are significantly higher than anticipated. As a result, there have been rotating outages for pockets of customers across the island and those outages are expected to continue into this evening at least to midnight. The outages also may be longer than anticipated for some customers.

Temperatures and winds for tomorrow morning are forecast to result in colder weather than this evening, so rotating outages are highly likely for the peak period from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and possibly later.

Customers on the island are asked to avoid unnecessary electricity usage and reduce consumption as much as possible. “All conservation efforts assist us,” said Dawn Dalley, VP Corporate Relations, NL Hydro. “In particular when we are rotating customers on and off the grid, it is most helpful when people turn down their heat and lights because it assists with system stability.”

A reminder that customers can assist in conserving electricity by:
1. Reducing electric heat by a few degrees
2. Conserving hot water by not running dishwashers, washers and showers
3. Avoiding the use of clothes dryers
4. Turning off Christmas lights

Updates will be provided as required and NL Hydro thanks all customers for their patience and support.