Power restored to some customers

Electricity is being gradually restored across the country following an island-wide power outage that occurred around 11:30 a.m.

The outage which disrupted activity across Barbados triggered the closure of schools and public offices around 1:30 p.m.

In its latest update, the Barbados Light & Power Company (BLPC) confirmed that “the outage was the result of a fault of our 24kv transmission line in St Thomas, which then caused the system to cascade.”

It added that the process to restore commenced within the hour, however, it was hindered by system stability challenges which it is investigating.

“As a result, some customers would have experienced intermittent outages during restoration.

We are currently about 60 per cent restored and will continue to restore power to all customers as safely as possible.”

At a news conference earlier, Minister of Business and Energy Senator Lisa Cummins said the BLPC had managed to isolate the fault and would continue to work on restoring power.

“We are clear that the restoration process will take some time. Light and Power’s crews are on the ground. Some areas are restored already, some areas not quite just yet. However, they have advised us there will be the expectation that in order to maintain stability that we could expect that in the coming hours, we will see some areas remaining without power while others are restored,” she said.

Acting Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw acknowledged the overall inconvenience but urged the public to await further updates from the Ministry of Business and Energy and the Barbados Light and Power later in the evening