The St. Kitts Electricity Company SKELEC has announced a series of planned electricity outages across the island that will go into effect Monday, September 9.
According to a SKELEC notice issued Sunday, on Saturday, during routine maintenance on its largest generating unit at the Needsmust Power Station, engineers discovered damage to the unit that could lead to severe equipment failure.
The notice read “In order to execute repairs and prevent further damage, the unit will have to be placed offline or out of service for up to fourteen days.
Repair work has already begun and SKELEC has also sought additional assistance from regional and international partners to fast track repairs. Additional generators have also been procured ahead of schedule in light of the recent breakdown. The additional units are expected to be on island and installed within two weeks.
While repairs are being done and the additional units are installed, it may become necessary for us to commence a series of planned outages to mitigate against the loss of generation capacity.”
Freedom FM understands parts to repair the unit should start arriving in the federation as early as Tuesday, and the repair crew is expected to arrive on Wednesday. Freedom further understands that while the initial outrage schedule is from Monday to Friday, another schedule may be issued for the coming week if necessary.
SKELEC published the outage schedule which shows the days, times, areas to be affected and the duration of each service interruption on the company’s website and Facebook page.
SKELEC has apologized for any inconveniences that may be caused by these series of outages, saying it values its consumers’ patience and understanding as it seeks to be proactive in this regard.