HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A failure along a transmission line that serves the Pagat Substation resulted in emergency outages late Friday morning to early afternoon, according to a release from the Guam Power Authority.
As a result of the failure, GPA lost the Mangilao Substation and 60 megawatts of power production from the solar farm in the village.
“This triggered first stage under frequency load shedding, GPA system protection to several distribution feeders. Additionally, feeders from the Pagat Substation were also affected and outaged,” the release stated.
“As online generation increased loads and additional units were brought up to replace (the) 60-MW loss from (the) solar plant, almost all distribution feeders were restored and returned to service within 20 to 30 minutes, with the exception of a few feeders that were being served from the Pagat Substation, pending transmission line restoration. At around 12:26 p.m., the remaining feeders were restored and returned to service,” the release added.
GPA also notified residents on Thursday that the Cabras 1 baseload unit had to be taken offline for repairs, and cautioned that a partial implementation of its potential rotating outage schedule could happen.
In Friday’s release, the power utility stated that it managed to avoid load shedding with help from the U.S. Navy and partners in the interruptible load program.
“GPA currently benefits from approximately 16 MW of energy contributed by large customers participating through the ILP and the U.S. Navy. These customers voluntarily switch to their standby generators during peak demand periods, helping to minimize outages for other customers,” the release stated.
“The lower weather temperatures and concerted efforts to conserve energy has attributed to nominal load shedding in the past month. As mentioned, GPA continues to work on a multipronged approach and future solutions to minimize disruptions, resolve our power system shortfall, and increase generation capacity to meet the power needs of the island,” the release added.
GPA continues to encourage power customers to practice energy conservation measures, such as turning off water heaters and limiting usage of air conditioners at their homes and offices.
Solar panels as seen at the Mangilao solar facility on June 23, 2022. A transmission line failure on Jan. 5, 2024 resulted in the Guam Power Authority losing the Mangilao Substation and power production from the Mangilao solar facility.
