Power restored after island-wide blackout on Tobago

The Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) is confirming that it has managed to restore full power to the island of Tobago, following “an island wide outage at 8:53 am today”.

The Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) is confirming that it has managed to restore full power to the island of Tobago, following “an island wide outage at 8:53 am today”.

The power outage impact election recount exercises which were taking place.

“T&TEC, in conjunction with the Elections and Boundaries Commission, prioritised restoration of supply to the two recount locations at Calder Hall and Glen Road to minimise delays to the process,” the company assures in an official statement on the matter.

The power company also confirms that a probe has been launched to determine why the outage happened in the first place.

“The outage occurred during a maintenance exercise on circuits leaving the Cove Power Plant,” T&TEC explains in the release.

“At approximately 6:45 am, one of two transformers which steps down the voltage from the Plant to the Milford Bay Substation was taken out of service. Two hours into the maintenance work the second transformer tripped, along with the lines from the Plant to Milford Bay,” the company said.

T&TEC added: “The Milford Bay Substation is the primary substation that feeds the other substations on the island. As a result of the line and transformer trips, customers lost supply for between 20 minutes to just over one hour.”