Public Utilities Minister, Barry Padarath has confirmed that a technical failure inside a Trinidad Generation Unlimited (TGU) facility triggered Monday’s power outage, which affected several areas across Trinidad, including in the capital city.
If you experienced something like this on Monday afternoon, Public Utilities Minister Barry Padarath explained what caused an electrical outage to several parts of T&T, including in Port of Spain and environs.
“It had to do with a faulty keypad on one of TGU’s facilities in terms of the power grid.”
Power, he said, was restored relatively quickly, with most areas regaining service within half an hour.
“What happens is once there’s a trip on the grid it has a ripple effect. So there were 13 areas in Trinidad that was impacted by low voltage. In some instances the lights went completely off. They were able to restore it in some instances in 15 minutes in POS, 22 minutes in parts of Central, and in some instances, very few instances, it went on for about 33 minutes.”
Minister Padarath stressed that the incident has highlighted deeper issues within the system, prompting a comprehensive review of national electricity infrastructure.
“However I have spoken with the board of TGU and now we will get a board of Powergen very shortly, the RIC as well as T&TEC for there to be a review of all existing T&TEC infrastructure substations.”
Referencing previous nationwide outages, Minister Padarath said this is not the first time failures have exposed vulnerabilities within the power grid.
“You will recall a few years ago that there were claims that a tree branch had fallen on the Gandhi Village Substation and that is what caused the nationwide blackout and so on. When I came into office, the then Minister took a very hands-off approach to a lot of the utility companies. The challenges over the last number of years were not addressed in terms of the change out of the infrastructure, addressing a lot of the dilapidated means, etc.”
And he said Government is already preparing for the re-negotiation of major power purchase agreements to ensure there is sufficient manufactured power onto the grid.
“You would have seen a couple weeks ago there were concerns about low voltage particularly in the Central area. The Power purchase agreements will come some of them not all of them the ones I believe it’s Trinity Power and Powergen those come up for renegotiating in 2029. So those negotiations will start very shortly.”
Minister Padarath was speaking to journalists in Penal after the commissioning of the new lighting infrastructure at two recreational spaces on Monday night.