HECO: 30-minute rolling outages in parts of Big Isle today

Hawaiian Electric Co. said this morning that is is initiating 30-minute rolling outages for parts of Hawaii island today “due to the unexpected loss of several large generators.”

In a social media post, the company said the “brief emergency outages are being initiated in various areas of the island to prevent loss of power to an even greater number of customers. The impacted areas and the timing of the outages are based on the amount of electric demand that needs to be reduced.”

HECO said three combustion turbine units tripped offline and another unit is being repaired. Also, “wind resources are near zero,” the company said.

The social media post noted that Monday night’s generator fire at Hawaiian Electric’s Panaewa Substation is not related to today’s generation shortfall.

Meanwhile, 4,500 Makakilo customers on Oahu were reported to be without power at 10 a.m. today.