The following is Fiji Electricity Authority chief executive officer Hasmukh Patel’s comments on the power cuts:

We have been having power disruptions due to lightning strikes on the 132,000 volts transmission lines affecting power supply to our valued customers.

There was a lightning strike at 1:31pm on Monday April 3, 2017 on the Wailoa to Vuda 132,000 volts transmission line and we lost power supply to the Western Region.

Power supply was fully restored to the affected areas by 2:18pm.

In another incident yesterday afternoon (Tuesday April 4, 2017), a lightning strike caused a power outage in the Western Division at 1:43pm affecting power supply to the Western Region. Power supply was fully restored by 5:06pm.

Whilst we were in the process of restoring power supply to the Western Region, we lost power supply in the Central Region at 2:15pm due to a technical fault at the Wailoa Power Station.

The fault was rectified and power supply in the Central Region was restored by 5:36pm. Further checks were done last night and we are also in the process of engaging experts to re-look into the issue.

Both the Western outages were due to lightning strike (transient fault) as there was no substantial damages and we were able to restore power supply without having the necessity to carry out any major repairs.

The FEA sincerely apologises for any inconvenience caused to all our valued customers which is beyond our control.

Source: Fiji Electricity Authority

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