By Miguel Gonzalez
Editor
(Oahu)–The lost of electricity generators forced the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) to cut services in areas such as Hawaii Kai, Kalihi, Kailua, Waipahu, according to HECO spokeswoman Jan Miller.
“At About 8:50 am we lost these generators and right away started to repair the outages,” Miller explained to Hawaiiahe.com.
Although the cause of the outages has not yet been identified, Miller said that by 9:20 am, most affected communities had power back.
“We started additional generation and are checking all communities in the island of Oahu to make sure our customers are with power.”
Check back to Hawaiiahe.com for more information on this breaking news story.
UPDATE 1:35 PM
Hawaiian Electric restored power shortly after 10 a.m. today to almost all customers affected by an outage that occurred at about 8:50 a.m. About 45,000 customers in Waipahu, portions of town, Leeward and Windward Oahu, Aina Haina and Hawaii Kai lost power when the largest generating unit on the system – the 180-megawatt (MW) independent AES generating unit – as well as Hawaiian Electric’s Kahe 1 (92 MW) and Waiau 7 (92 MW) generating units tripped offline.
Power was turned off to some customers briefly as a protective measure to restore the balance of power supply and demand on the Oahu grid and prevent a possibly more widespread or longer outage. Hawaiian Electric quickly brought additional generators on-line to restore the balance and system operators were able to begin restoring customers within 25 minutes. Almost all customers had service restored by 10 a.m., with small remaining pockets of customers restored within the hour.
“We sincerely apologize for the disruption to our customers,” said Lynne Unemori, Hawaiian Electric vice president for corporate relations. “Our employees worked to safely restore power as quickly as possible and we appreciate our customers’ patience and understanding.”