HILO >> A sudden problem at Hamakua Energy Partners north of Hilo forced the Hawaii Electric Light Co. to conduct rolling blackouts throughout part of the day yesterday, according to the company. Big Isle gets
rolling blackouts
Star-Bulletin staff
The forced outages affected 10,600 customers.
Hamakua Energy Partners is an independent company that sells power to Helco.
The problem began at 8:04 a.m. when Hamakua abruptly cut off 32 megawatts, Helco said. The island needs up to 170 megawatts, Helco has said.
The morning breakdown caused lost power to 3,300 customers, but Helco was able to start old, standby equipment and restore power in 13 minutes.
As power demand increased toward midday, Helco could not keep up and conducted rolling blackouts affecting 7,300 customers from 12:25 to 2:43 p.m., the company said.
At 3:27 p.m., Hamakua returned its 32 megawatts to service. The cause of Hamakua's malfunction is being investigated, according to Helco.
County of Hawaii
