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About 1,700 HELCO customers remain powerless Sunday (Jan 4)


Hawaii County Civil Defense audio message

MEDIA RELEASE

Crews will be working in North Glenwood and Volcano (includes Akatsuka, Mauna Loa Estates, Wright Road, and Volcano Golf Course) areas tonight and hope to complete restoration for these customers. Photo courtesy of HELCO

Crews will be working in North Glenwood and Volcano (includes Akatsuka, Mauna Loa Estates, Wright Road, and Volcano Golf Course) areas tonight and hope to complete restoration for these customers. Photo courtesy of HELCO

HILO, January 4, 2015 (12:00 p.m.) – Hawai‘i Electric Light crews continue to make progress on restoring electric service to customers affected by recent severe weather conditions. Crews worked through the night to restore service to approximately 3,300 customers island-wide. All transmission lines were repaired and are back in service.

About 1,700 customers are currently without service. Today crews will be working in the following areas: Kaloko, Captain Cook, Hōlualoa, Kamuela, Hawi, Āhualoa, Honoka‘a, Kalōpā, Paauilo, Nānāwale, Hawaiian Paradise Park, Volcano, Upper Puna, Hawaiian Ocean View Estates, and Ka‘u.

The areas from Lindsey Road to Āhualoa suffered substantial damage. Customers in these areas are advised to prepare for an extended outage through Tuesday.

Hawai‘i Electric Light asks customers who have not yet reported their power outage to call its trouble line at 969-6666. Due to the high call volume, customers may experience a longer wait time before speaking with a representative. The company sincerely apologizes for this inconvenience and thanks customers for their patience and understanding.

The company urges the community to be safe and treat downed power lines as energized and dangerous. Do not handle or move any fallen or damaged utility equipment. If someone is injured by a downed power line, do not approach them. Call 9-1-1 for assistance.

UPDATED (5:18 p.m. on 1/4/2015)

Power has been restored for Holualoa, Waimea town, Captain Cook, Keauhou, Aloha Estates/Mountain View, Leilani Estates, Waiohinu and Lorenzo Road (Ka‘u), Kukuihaele.

Crews are currently working in North Glenwood, Volcano (Akatsuka, Mauna Loa Estates, Wright Road).

HELCO expects to have all of Hawaiian Ocean View Estates completed this afternoon.

UPDATED (10:41 PM on 1/4/2015)

Power restoration update from Hawaii Electric Light

HELCO crews working in Ahualoa making repairs Sunday, January 4, 2015. Photo courtesy of HELCO

HELCO crews working in Ahualoa making repairs Sunday, January 4, 2015. Photo courtesy of HELCO

HILO, January 4, 2015 (5:45 p.m.) – Hawai‘i Electric Light crews continue to make progress on restoring electric service to customers affected by recent severe weather conditions. On Sunday, repairs were completed in Aloha Estates (Mountain View), Hawaiian Ocean View Estates, Hawi, Kamuela, Kona (Kaloko, Captain Cook, Keauhou, Hōlualoa), Leilani Estates, Lorenzo Road (Ka‘u), and Wai‘ōhinu. Crews continue to work in Āhualoa, Hawaiian Paradise Park, Honoka‘a, Kalōpā, Ka‘u, Nānāwale, Paauilo, Volcano, North Glenwood, and Upper Puna. About 1,100 customers are currently without power.

The company’s first priority was to safely restore the backbone of its cross-island transmission lines to stabilize the power grid and then focus on restoring pocket outages around the island. All major transmission lines were back in service early Sunday morning. The most difficult challenge was replacing a bent steel pole in the Waimea district. While Waimea crews were replacing the pole, Kona and Hilo crews were repairing equipment and restoring service around the island. Service was restored to about 44,000 customers by 7:00 a.m. Sunday.

Hawai‘i Electric Light will continue its round-the-clock repair operations until all customers are restored. At this time, it is estimated that customers in the hardest hit areas will have service restored by midnight Tuesday.

“We know what a hardship it is for our customers to be out of power,” said Hawai‘i Electric Light spokesperson Rhea Lee. “We sincerely apologize and want to assure them that we are doing everything we can to safely restore service as quickly as possible.”

Similar to Iselle, the transmission system was in a precarious situation, as winds damaged three of four cross-island lines and one of two lines serving Puna Geothermal Venture. Damage included fallen trees and branches on lines, downed lines, and a bent steel pole caused by a fallen ironwood tree. Consequently, the company was unable to accept power from two large generation sources, Hamakua Energy Partners and Hawi Renewable Development Wind Farm, until the transmission lines were back in service. Puna Geothermal Venture does not generate power for the grid unless both transmission lines serving them are in operation.

Some outages occurred as a means to protect the electric grid. Hawai‘i Electric Light’s system protection is designed to quickly respond to system disturbances to keep the grid functional. One of these responses is “load-shedding” blocks of customers when the demand for power is higher than the supply.

The system frequency can become unbalanced when demand exceeds supply and cause circuits to trip without warning and create a domino effect leading to an island-wide blackout. To prevent this situation, blocks of customers are automatically disconnected from the system for a short time while other generation is started to cover the demand. These kinds of outages are usually short, from a few seconds to a few minutes. On Friday, some customers experienced up to three brief load-shedding events.

Another system protection measure Hawai‘i Electric Light has incorporated into its grid are intelligent relay protective devices that monitor circuit conditions and detects anomalies. These relays automatically disconnect power to the impacted lines. This situation occurred many times during the storm around the island. An example of this situation occurred on Friday when a large ironwood tree fell on transmission lines along the highway in Kamuela and bent a steel pole, shattered five spans of cross-arms, and downed power lines (see photo, attached).

A bent utility pole in Waimea Sunday, January 4, 2015. Photo courtesy of HELCO

A bent utility pole in Waimea Sunday, January 4, 2015. Photo courtesy of HELCO

Many Hawai‘i Electric Light employees have been working through the weekend to restore service and assist customers. As line crews work in the field, other employees answer phones, receive customer outage information, coordinate repair work, assess damage, manage generation supply, and provide other support. One of the critical support functions is field assessment of damage. Employees were in the field beginning Saturday morning to assess the damage and design the necessary repairs. These employees traveled subdivision-to-subdivision and house-to-house, as necessary. The assessment is a critical element to speed repairs. The data collected allows designs to be completed quickly and material and supplies to be available and ready for the crews.

A top priority for Hawai‘i Electric Light is safety for the community and employees. Safety precautions have been shared with local media and included in social media postings

The community is encouraged to be safe and treat downed power lines as energized and dangerous. Do not handle or move any fallen or damaged utility equipment. If someone is injured by a downed power line, do not approach them. Call 9-1-1 for assistance.

Hawai‘i Electric Light asks customers who have not yet reported their power outage to call its trouble line at 969-6666. Due to the high call volume, customers may experience a longer wait time before speaking with a representative. The company sincerely apologizes for this inconvenience and thanks customers for their patience and understanding.

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