New Generating Unit Causes Massive Blackout in Venezuela's Paraguana Peninsula

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A newly inaugurated generating unit at the Josefa Camejo Power Plant in Paraguana, Falcon, forced three interconnected power plants on the Paraguana Peninsula offline. The incident was caused by a balance disorder of a 150-megawatt (MW) Siemens (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) SGT5-2000E simple-cycle combustion turbine, which was inaugurated in September 2008. All of the units temporarily suspended their power supply to the local grid for a couple of hours, although they were still available. The system had automatically disconnected all of the units. The Punto Fijo, Josefa Camejo and Genevapca plants, located within the 965,000-barrel-per-day Paraguana Refining Complex, were offline on January 1 and partially offline on January 2. Punto Fijo plant officials said the plants have already restored power.

The Punto Fijo and Josefa Camejo thermal power plants are owned and operated by Compania Anonima de Administracion y Fomento Electrico, which belongs to Corpoelec, a newly created firm overseeing 14 electricity companies in Venezuela. Construction of the $450 million Josefa Camejo thermal power plant is expected to be complete by June 2009, with the addition of two more 150-MW Siemens turbines to supply power to the local grid.

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