ST. JOHN鈥橲, N.L. 鈥� Crews in Newfoundland made progress Monday on restoring energy for thousands of people as the island entered its fourth day of power outages that were triggered by a combination of events including cold weather, a fire at a terminal station and a power plant that went offline.
All schools throughout the island, including Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic, have been shut down until Wednesday as a result of the power shortages. Warming centres have also been set up for people without power.
Newfoundland Power president Earl Ludlow said crews have made strides in restoring power after residents and businesses were told a day earlier to conserve energy.
鈥淚 know it鈥檚 frustrating, I know it鈥檚 difficult,鈥� Ludlow told a news conference. 鈥淏ut I will also say that the plea for conservation did show up very quickly.鈥�
By midday, power was restored for all but about 5,000 customers 鈥� down from about 30,000 as of 8:30 a.m. local time 鈥� but Ludlow said that figure could change throughout the day.
Premier Kathy Dunderdale said the situation was improving hourly but added that people should still be conserving power.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a critical time here in the province and we鈥檙e not out of the woods yet,鈥� Dunderdale said.
鈥淲e鈥檙e coming out the other end but we need to be careful about what we鈥檙e doing for the next few days and few weeks and the more that people can contribute to that effort, the better off we鈥檒l all be.鈥�
The power interruptions began Thursday evening when planned outages were implemented as utilities struggled to keep up with increased demand because of bitterly cold temperatures that gripped the island.
On Saturday, a fire broke out at the Sunnyside terminal station after a transformer malfunction, triggering more outages as a blizzard slammed the island. The cause of the malfunction is not yet known.
At the peak of the outages Saturday morning, about 190,000 customers were without power.
Then on Sunday evening, there was a flash in the switch yard at a power plant in Holyrood, causing further outages. Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro said there was no issue with the plant or the generating units, and crews were trying to determine what caused the problem at the plant, located about 50 kilometres southwest of St. John鈥檚.
Ludlow said once the problem at the Holyrood plant is resolved, that would help stabilize the province鈥檚 energy grid.
Paul Mackey, deputy city manager responsible for public works in St. John鈥檚, said there is some concern about flooding with warmer temperatures and rain in the forecast.
He said the city has experienced a combination of snow, unusually cold temperatures and high winds this winter, and the forecast of rain could be another complication. With snow accumulations standing at 140 centimetres in some places, Mackey said it鈥檚 the most snow this early in the winter that he has seen during his 22 years with the public works department.
Earlier in the day, Dunderdale defended the province鈥檚 energy system, saying no system in the world is 100 per cent reliable.
鈥淵es, somebody could make the argument that you could build in a super amount of redundancy, but then we have to pay for that,鈥� she told radio station VOCM.
She likened it to a homeowner having spare appliances like fridges and stoves stored in their garage just in case.
鈥淚s that practical? Is that sensible?鈥� she asked. 鈥淒o you put that amount of cost on the ratepayer?鈥�
