Both tripped generators back online in Holyrood

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro’s Holyrood generation station is back at full power after high winds shut down two units on the weekend.

The power was out for about an hour Saturday afternoon for about 35,000 homes. With one of the two tripped generators still offline early this morning, Hydro asked the public to avoid unnecessary electricity during peak demand times this morning, by not running dishwashers, washers, showers and clothes dryers unless necessary between 7 and 9 a.m. today. Repairs were finished on the second generator later in the morning.

“The repairs were completed at about 10 to nine this morning,” said Nalcor spokeswoman Merissa Wiseman said. “Everything is back on and we didn’t experience any outages this morning.”

Wiseman said it’s possible the public request to conserve energy this morning had an effect.

“Typically, we start see peaking of electricity consuption around 7 (a.m.) and then it usually peaks at around 8. This morning, we saw a peak at 7:30, 700 megawatts on the Avalon, and then it didn’t peak any further, and then it started to drop around 8:30,” she said. “Although we can’t confirm for sure that people’s efforts helped, we think it did, because it was different than what we typically see. So it seemed like people got the message and did what they could, and then at around 7:30 the load stabilized, and I think that helped things.”

This morning dawned with St. John’s around -10 C, so the cold weather was also a concern, said Wiseman.

“If it had been like Saturday, a bit warmer, it probably wouldn’t have caused such concern,” she said. “But we knew it was a cold morning and that people would be waking up and putting the heat on. And when you get that cold load in the morning, the loads coming on all at once, when your system is a little unstable, that can cause some concern.”

Wiseman said the wind caused a problem with a piece of equipment called the turning gear on unit one, the generator that was repaired this morning. “There’s a chain on there that was broken and needed to be repaired,” she said. “It was the wind that caused damage to the actual power line that services the station. Our focus, of course, was to make repairs and get the units back on, so we’re still doing an investigation to see exactly what caused both units to trip. It is unusual, so we’re looking at that to see exactly what happened.”