Palaau Generating Unit Trips, Causes Islandwide Outage

Molokai experienced an islandwide power outage lasting several hours and affecting 3,250 customers last week.

The power outage started around 11 a.m. on Jan. 7. Hawaiian Electric Communications Manager Shayna Decker said in an email that the power was restored to the majority of the utility’s customers by 3 p.m.

Another 280 customers in parts of Kualapu‘u, Ho‘olehua and Kalaupapa only had their power restored by 8:40 p.m.

“The initial event occurred when a single generating unit tripped at the Palaau Power Plant. We are looking into other factors that may have led to the system-wide disruption,” she said.

As part of incident’s assessment, Hawaiian Electric is inspecting and testing electrical equipment on the system to address how to mitigate similar issues, according to Decker.

“We appreciate the community’s patience as restoring power did take time as crews had to systematically check each circuit to ensure the system was safe and stable before bringing everyone back online,” she said.