CUC investigating repeated short outages
CUC staff member at work
(CNS): A number of short but relatively frequent power outages over the last week or so in various neighborhoods on Grand Cayman are under investigation by CUC. The island has experienced a number of long, widespread power outages during the first quarter of the year and Grand Cayman’s power provider has admitted it has been dealing with a number of shorter outages to some customers. CUC said this was due to the temporary shutdown of a generating unit but normally another unit would kick in and customers would not notice.
“The recent outages in West Bay and other areas have been caused by temporary loss of a generating unit that has initiated load shedding. Normally, loss of a single generating unit would not impact customers as the remaining units on line respond quickly to restore the balance of power,” an official told CNS Thursday after three short outages in West Bay between Tuesday night and Thursday morning.
“CUC is currently investigating the control systems that respond in these situations to avoid these short duration outages. The outage in West Bay Thursday morning was 14 minutes,” the spokesperson added, offering apologies for the inconvenience from the firm.
Category: Local News
You think we have power outages now, just wait until Summer when everyone is pumping up their AC units to keep cool.
The outages will seem like you’re living in Cuba and parts of Honduras.
It was 30 mins. My stove clock was saying 6.30am at 7 in the morning. So if they can’t accurately determine how long the power was off for then heaven help us all.
Why is it always West Bay that’s mentioned? In Bodden Town we had two outages in 24 hours.
It is because west bay had 3 back to back power outages. You are not the only district that was affected
CUC is a disgrace and only because it has been given perpetual monopoly status why it can operate like a third-world utility public owned utility provider. Were it not for the lessons learned from Ivan where back-up generators are now SOPs things would have been far worse and would severely impact commerce. I won’t include residential communities where the not so rich can not afford this luxury. Will the CIG do anything? That’s why we need to go the renewable energy route because CIG won’t break up this monopoly as did the then Minister with vision who broke up the C&W monopoly. Mind you the Regulators still have to keep an eye on the latter as they are playing fast and loose with the rules. For example, slowing down Internet services so that you are forced to purchase exorbitant packages! CNS thanks for reporting on this.