Engineers yet to discover why power cable turned off
THE island’s electricity continues to be generated by the stand-by engines while Guernsey Electricity investigates why the cable between here and Jersey was turned off by its protection system.
The island-wide power cut on Monday left homes and businesses without electricity for at least 35 minutes, with traffic lights going off during the rush hour.
A spokesman for Guernsey Electricity said the reasons for the outage were complex and the electricity cable would remain switched off until they had answers.
‘At 16.52, the cable protection system for the electricity link between Guernsey and Jersey (GJ1) turned the cable off,’ they said.
‘Generators at the Vale power station were quickly started and the majority of customer supplies were restored by 17.34.
‘The cable link will remain off while we investigate the cause of the outage. During this time we will continue to use the generators at the power station to maintain supplies to the island.
‘We apologise for any disruption caused to customers and investigations will continue until the exact cause is established. This may take a few days due to the complexity of the cable protection systems.’
Guernsey Electricity said the fault was completely unrelated to ‘routine maintenance’ surveys being carried out this week of several cables on the Channel Island Electricity Grid.
The spokesman said the incident on Monday showed why the island should not be reliant on a single electricity source.
‘This event again reinforces the need for Guernsey to have a second subsea electricity cable connection to the island,’ he said.
‘This will allow us to achieve our aim of providing a secure, sustainable and affordable electricity supply to the island.
‘Guernsey Electricity continues to progress a second cable connection direct to France.
‘A second connection will also allow the transition of energy supply from hydrocarbon sources towards more local renewable generation.
‘Both of these matters form an extremely important part of the energy policy development which is currently under way for the island.’
The traffic lights at the bottom of Fountain Street near the Town Church remain out of action as a control unit is not working and a replacement is being sourced as a matter of urgency.
In the meantime, drivers have been asked to use extreme caution when passing through the area, and to allow pedestrians to cross.
At any other faulty traffic lights, motorists are urged to approach the junction with caution and treat them like a filter.
