Hurricane Elsa Electricity System Update #2

Castries, July 2, 2021 – St. Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC) crews began power restoration works at about 4:30 p.m. when the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) gave clearance for the damage assessment to begin, following the passage of Hurricane Elsa.

The electricity system suffered no major infrastructural damage. Most of the power outages were caused by numerous instances of damage to lines and poles by trees, branches, and other structures causing feeders to trip.  

As at 9 p.m. LUCELEC crews had reenergised all the major substations around the island as well as nearly all the feeders off the substations.  Only the Fond St. Jacques feeder in Soufriere had not been energised, but there was a crew working on clearing lines along the feeder to attempt to restore that feeder some time tonight. 

The Company estimates that about 80 percent of customers had received power by 9 p.m. There were some smaller areas across the island that were still without power as a result of localised faults.  These are being addressed as LUCELEC crews and contractors continue to work assiduously to restore power as safely and as quickly as possible.

Chief Engineer Gilroy Pultie says the crews will work for as long as they can, but at some point tonight, the crews will need to rest to resume restoration work on Saturday morning. He adds that there remain some faults on some parts of the transmission lines, so the system is not optimally configured with its usual redundancy at this point.  He expects that most of the restoration work should be completed on Saturday. 

Customers can call the following numbers to report localised faults: 452-2165 for the north of the island (from Cap Estate to Dennery) and 454-6617 for the south of the island (from Praslin to Bouton). Due to the volume of calls, customers may experience some delays in connecting with our Trouble Call Operator.  LUCELEC has therefore made available the following numbers that customers can send fault reports to via WhatsApp: 285-6796, 285-7859, 285-3593, 285-3329, 728-9754, 728-9755, 728-9756. Please provide your name, a contact number, the location of the fault and the type of fault.

LUCELEC apologises to its customers for the inconvenience caused by the outages and thanks them for their patience while we work to reenergize the system.

LUCELEC will provide a further update on Saturday, July 03, 2021.