Two Power Plants Forced Offline after Wednesday's Blackout in Trinidad and Tobago

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--On Wednesday, a fault at one of Trinidad and Tobago's transmission lines caused a blackout, which affected the northwestern part of the country. The areas that were affected are Chaguaramas, Carenage, Diego Martin, PetitValley, Diamond Vale and Westmoorings.

The power outage caused a shortfall of overall generation from the Power Generation Company of Trinidad and Tobago. At the 842-megawatt (MW) Point Lisas power plant, which produces about 60% of Trinidad and Tobago's electricity, a fire broke out in Unit 10's generator exciting system, forcing the unit offline. The unit's protection system was automatically activated. The affected unit is an ABB turbine with a capacity of 62.5 MW and the generator was manufactured by EM (Electric Machinery). Backup work is expected to be completed in about a week.

At the Port of Spain Power Plant, in a 80 MW steam turbine (Unit 4), the condenser became clogged with debris in sea water used for cooling. This occurred after several planned outages at the Port of Spain Power Plant. The vacuum had to be reduced, according to plant officials.

Unit 10 at Point Lisas and Unit 4 at Port of Spain remain offline. A date has not been specified for when they will be restarted.

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