Power plant workers in action on Wednesday.
PHILIPSBURG--Technical difficulties at utilities company GEBE’s power plant resulted in a countrywide outage that began at 3:57am Wednesday, waking many residents from their slumber from the extreme heat.
The outage resulted in a number of issues for several establishments, including Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) where flights were affected after the airport’s backup system failed to respond correctly, leaving the airport without power. PJIA said the cause appears to be one of the new generators, which was causing a shutdown.
The airport requires that three generators operate simultaneously to provide adequate power. This system had worked flawlessly before, the airport said in a message posted on its Facebook page. The airport’s generators became fully operational after one hour and 30 minutes.
The outage also knocked out the operations of the emergency 911 system at the St Maarten Police Force, which became inoperable.
GEBE said in a press statement Wednesday afternoon that it had experienced a country-wide power outage that began at approximately 3:57am.
“The power plant team immediately went into action to address the situation and worked swiftly to restore power, prioritising critical areas such as the hospital, airport, police station, school districts and all areas with water pumps, especially the ones feeding the school districts,” GEBE said in its statement.
“At around 10:45am the situation was largely stabilised across the island and power had been restored to all areas with the exception of a small isolated area in Cay Bay,” GEBE said in the statement issued around 5:17pm.
Following the restoration of power, the power plant continued to conduct their technical assessment of two particular units whereby load-shedding was implemented in order to maintain the stability across the grid, GEBE said. “The assessment will continue throughout the course of the afternoon and evening. A further update will be provided once the assessment has been finalised.”
The company said the outage was beyond its control. Later in the evening more areas experienced power outages.
