APUA explains Tuesday night’s power outage and says situation has been rectified, but frustrated residents will not be placated

The Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) is explaining to disgruntled customers that the two-hour power outage they experienced on Tuesday night, June 15, was caused by a fuel leak at one of its plants at Crabbs.

The plant is owned by APUA but operated by the Antigua Power Company, the Authority says.

The outage seems to have affected a wide cross-section of the island, although not at the same time.

The utility company reportedly was forced to take the leaking engine offline. However, because of repair work being carried out on the standby engines, APUA was unable to put these into service. Therefore, it could not access the reserve capacity as it normally would.

The Authority says it had to interchange its feeders to avoid putting some residents at a disadvantage by leaving them without power for significantly longer periods.

In some areas, electricity was restored in short order, while other households went without for a longer time.

The utility company is now assuring the public that the issues have been corrected and all the feeders are back online.

Notwithstanding that assurance, Wednesday, June 15, saw intermittent power outages at several locations across the island. It is not clear, however, whether these were further linked to the situation in Crabbs.

A Paynters resident tells REAL News she is “frustrated, fed up, and angry” at APUA for what has become “totally unreliable electricity service,” whether she is working on the computer or doing laundry.

Another woman admits she is less affected by electricity suppression, because she has generator power.

However, she says, “generators run on fuel. And with the steep hike in the cost of diesel, it means I will be paying twice: at APUA and at the pump!

“This is killing people’s pocket and it is unacceptable,” she declares, “especially when I also have to buy water on top of that!”