Hawaiian Electric Co.’s rolling blackouts and calls for Oahu customers to conserve power could not have come at a worse time for fans of Marcus Mariota on Monday night as the Hawaii native was leading his Oregon Ducks against the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first college football national championship game.
The first evening blackout cut power to the Nuuanu, Pacific Heights and Kalihi Valley areas at about 6:30 p.m. during the game’s fourth quarter.
About 20 minutes after the game ended in a 42-20 loss for Oregon, power was restored to those areas but went out for many East Oahu neighborhoods around 7:25 p.m. A Hawaiian Electric spokeswoman said all East Oahu power had been restored as of 7:45 p.m.
But the company also said it may be necessary to take power down in rolling blackouts again Tuesday.
An estimated 27,000 customers were affected by the rolling blackouts, but no more than 14,000 at one time, the company said.
"We thank our customers for their patience, understanding and efforts to conserve power," said Darren Pai, Hawaiian Electric spokesman. "We deeply apologize for the impact of these outages, especially to those who were watching tonight’s football game."
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SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE MATTER
Hawaiian Electric Co. asked customers to conserve power Monday afternoon to ensure the demand did not exceed the amount available after problems with the following three power plants:
>> Kahe 135-mega-watt plant goes offline.
>> 180-megawatt AES power plant breaks down.
>> Kalaeloa plant operates at less than half 208-megawatt output.
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At about 3:45 p.m., just after the much-anticipated game began, HECO officials first notified the public that it was having power generation problems.
The utility blamed the problem, in part, on the breakdown of several HECO generating units, including the largest on the island, a 180-megawatt, coal-fired power plant operated by independent power producer AES Corp. In addition to problems with the AES plant, one of HECO’s generating units at the Kahe Power Plant, which normally produces 135 megawatts, was also offline after it experienced problems Monday morning, HECO said.
Also, the independently owned Kalaeloa Power Plant has been providing less than half its maximum output of 208 megawatts due to equipment problems, according to HECO.
HECO officials said they were forced to shut off power for about 10 minutes to about 22,000 customers at about 1:50 p.m. The outages affected customers in areas across the island, including Kailua, Kaneohe, Maunawili, Wailupe, Halawa, Makalapa, Waipahu and Waimano. Power to most affected customers was restored shortly after 2 p.m.
The company warned of the potential rolling blackouts and asked consumers to conserve power from 5 to 9 p.m., including turning off or lessening use of air conditioners, delaying hot showers and dishwashing, and minimizing cooking until later in the evening.
HECO warned that the evening blackouts were projected to last about one hour each and rotate through various parts of the island. It had announced that there would also be outages in other areas, including most of Waipahu and sections of Pearl City, Kunia and Ewa.
At about 8:30 p.m., however, the company announced that no further areas would be affected.
"Due to customer conservation, demand for power did not climb as high, allowing system operators to minimize the number and duration of the power outages," HECO officials said.
They said the rolling blackouts were necessary to ensure the demand for power did not exceed the amount of available generation, which could have caused an islandwide outage.
