Update on Today’s Power Outages

This morning Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro (Hydro) experienced some supply issues on the island. The power disruptions were a result of three factors combined. First, Unit 1 at Holyrood has been offline since Friday, to repair a small lube oil leak. Secondly, during start-up of the Combustion Turbine at 6:00AM today, a small adjustment to a fuel valve was required which delayed start up, meanwhile demand on the system was increasing rapidly. Finally, this growing demand, caused a drop in voltage, which resulted in Unit 3 tripping offline. Our system protection worked as it should to protect the equipment.

Because of this loss of generation, we were unable to meet customer demand. The CT was able to be started very shortly after these initial incidents and some customers were able to be restored right away. Following this, we also began an orderly process of starting additional standby generation.

However, as part of our Advance Notification Protocol, we issued a Power Emergency. This is one of three levels of communication which we implemented and educated customers on over the past several months. A Power Emergency is implemented during a generation shortage, where rotating outages and conservation is required. This morning, we expected this to be a short term notification, and it was.

Newfoundland Power rotated customers until mid-morning.

Holyrood Unit 3 was brought back online at approximately 10:30AM. The restart of Holyrood Unit 3 was carried out in a structured, prudent and safe way. Unit 1 was just returned to service at approximately 5:00PM, following the planned emergency repair.

We realize all outages impact our customers. Our team at Hydro is committed to doing everything we can to provide safe, reliable power. We will be fully investigating this morning’s disruptions and will continue to share the results of the investigation.