Following on the heels of two blackouts earlier last week, the Western District was in darkness again Saturday night, with some areas not getting electricity for 13 hours.
Executive Director of the American Samoa Power Authority Wallon Young explains that the power outage was caused by two faults on ASPA’s 34,500V underground power line – that supplies bulk power from the Satala Plant to the Tafuna Station.
This underground power line (Tie-Line), supplies up to 12 MW of power from the Satala Plant to the Tafuna Station – for customers in the Western half of Tutuila.
Young told KHJ News that the 34,000V Tie Line is considered a reliable supply line having suffered only two other cable faults in the last 5 years.
It’s suspected that the lightning surge that caused the outage on Sunday, September 8 , may have stressed the insulation on the TieLine cable as well.
Two faults were located on the underground TieLine cable approximately two miles apart.
For Saturday’s outage, the power went off at 9:05 PM and affected all distribution feeders supplied from the Tafuna Plant.
With the TieLine down and no possible generation support from Satala, plant operators had to run all six available generator sets at the Tafuna Plant at maximum capacity.
According to the ASPA official these six gen-sets however were not able to fully supply the Western half of Tutuila because demand was 15% higher.
As a result, Leone, Taputimu, Vaitogi and parts of Ottoville had to endure a power outage which was longer than normal.
Operators began restoring power to the Tafuna, Fagaima, Pavaiai Tafeta and Iliili areas beginning at 9:20PM.
Young said priority was given to areas where water wells and booster pumps are located and this was necessary to minimize any disruption to the water supply.
Asked why it took so long to restore power to some of the affected areas, the executive director said this due to the shortage of generation capacity at the Tafuna plant (when the Tie Line was down) and the time it normally takes to locate and repair faults on underground power lines.
It was a sleepless night for ASPA lineman and power generation technicians who worked non-stop to locate the underground cable faults and repair them by Sunday morning.
According to Young, Ituau Representative Mark Atafua and ASPA Board Chairman Fonoti Perelini provided a boost for the workers with a visit early Sundaymorning to offer their support; they even paid for food for the crews.
And what’s being done to avoid further outages”
Young said ASPA is currently installing three brand new 3,500KW Cummins generators at the Tafuna Plant.
A replacement 13.2KV switchgear will also be installed and the total cost of both projects is expected to be at least $5M.
Installation of the three new generator sets is ongoing and commissioning is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
ASPA apologizes for the outage and sincerely thanks the public for their kind understanding and support.
