The Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA) will adopt a rotational power outage plan tomorrow for a number of areas in the Western Division.

The planned rational power outages comes amid repair and maintenance works that will be carried out as part of the Monasavu Hydro Electric Power Scheme Half Life Refurbishment work.

Hotels and corporate customers are urged to operate on standby generator sets independently to cater for power requirements tomorrow from 4am to 8pm.

The FEA will be replacing the 132,000V circuit breaker at our 132kV/33kV Vuda Zone Substation, and do repair and maintenance work on the 132kV Nadarivatu – Vuda Transmission line.

In order to carry out this replacement, FEA Engineers will need to de-energise the 132,000 volts transmission line from the Nadarivatu Power Station to the Vuda Substation.

This will mean that FEA will not be able to transmit electricity from the Wailoa and Nadarivatu Hydro Power Stations to the West.

The new circuit breaker at Vuda Substation will be connected and commissioned tomorrow from 6am to 6pm.

During this time, FEA will rely on our Diesel Power Stations at Sigatoka, Qeleloa, Nadi, Vuda, and Rakiraki to supply electricity to customers in the West from Namatakula to Waimecia in Rakaraki.

However, the available diesel generation capacity in the West will not be sufficient to meet the power demand for customers in the West, which is why FEA will adopt the rotational power outage plan.

Customers in the West may experience power supply outages outside of the times and areas in the event of a failure of any one of our generating sets or power line failure. However, FEA said they would do their utmost to ensure these power interruptions were kept to a minimum.

“Please note that this exercise will be carried out subject to favourable weather conditions,” chief executive officer Hasmukh Patel said.

“In the event the weather conditions are unfavourable, then this exercise will be postponed and our valued customers will be informed accordingly.”

FEA apologises for any inconvenience that may be caused as a result of this planned exercise and seeks the co-operation and understanding of all its valued customers.

All queries can be directed to 132 333, for emergencies only call 913.

Meanwhile, a new circuit breaker at the Cunningham Road substation was successfully connected and commissioned last Saturday from 10pm to 8am on Sunday, May 7.

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