NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (JUNE 01, 2017) — The following is a statement from Mr. Jervan Swanston, Acting General Manager of the Nevis Electricity Company Limited (NEVLEC), dated June 01, 2017, regarding the recent spate of power outages on Nevis.

 

Quite recently, the public has been experiencing some frequent spates of intermittent power outages. This is due to major technical issues that have developed at the Prospect Power Plant.

 

As per past reports, aging infrastructure has now rendered three of our main sets out of commission, ranging from issues of power assemblies, cooling systems and in one case, a damaged crank shaft.

 

The maintenance staff is working assiduously to correct the defects where possible and the needed parts are being procured. These outages will continue until further notice.

 

At present, there is no schedule outage notice, as loads will be taken off depending on the demands at the power plant.

 

We therefore crave your patience and understanding and ask that all necessary precautions be taken to safeguard your appliances.

 

On a more positive note, we are pleased to announce that the recently procured 3.85 Wartsila engine has begun to arrive on island with 15 containers arriving on Tuesday May 30, 2017.

 

Most of the civil works have been completed and installation will begin shortly.

 

The general public is further advised, that there will be some amount of power outages during the installation stage of the new engine to make connections of the exhaust, the fuel system and ultimately, full connection to the grid.

 

Again, we are humbly requesting your continued patience, as we seek to alleviate the frequency of these outages and to have the power supply restored to normalcy in the shortest possible time.