All Trinidad power plants down

Marvin Gonzalez

(Trinidad Guardian) Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales has confirmed to Guardian Media that all power plants in Trinidad are currently down.

This has resulted in a nationwide power outage across the country shortly around 1pm today.

Gonzales said he is “investigating the matter.” Electricity energy is widely purchased, meters and fed into a national grid from independent producers. These are Power Gen Company of T&T, Trinidad Generation Unlimited and Trinity Power Ltd. Meanwhile, T&TEC has since issued a statement, stating that the cause of the incident is “unknown” at this time and advised customers that they are experiencing “a major disturbance on the system and are working to restore supply within the shortest possible time.”

General Manager of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC), Kelvin Ramsook said around 7.10 pm that it could take another five hours for electricity to be restored across Trinidad.

He was speaking live on the CNC3 newscast.

He said T&TEC was able to clear the problem around 1.20 pm but that it was take a while before power could be restord to the grid.

Minister of Public Utilities, Marvin Gonzalves said he believes and hopes it can be restored in a shorter timespan because of the hard work of the T&TEC workers at the Mt Hope plant.

He said Ramsook did not want to hazard a guess and therefore may have given a safe timespan.