EFL's excuse not good enough - Prasad

EFL's excuse not good enough - Prasad

NFP Leader Biman Prasad

The National Federation Party says the management of Energy Fiji Limited has some serious questions to answer about the failure of power supplies in Viti Levu and Vanua Levu during Tropical Cyclone Sarai.

NFP Leader, Professor Biman Prasad says many parts of Viti Levu had their power supply interrupted even hours before these areas started getting affected by winds on Friday.

He says three days later most of these areas were still without power.

Prasad says even other areas where supply was restored suffered sudden blackouts resulting in surges and damage to home appliances and equipment.

The NFP Leader says EFL blames strong winds for affecting electricity infrastructure but that excuse is not good enough.

Prasad adds that Viti Levu was not even in the direct path of the Cyclone.

He stresses that electricity is a critical service and lives depend on it and Fiji suffers huge losses in productivity when the power goes off.

Prasad says the National Disaster Management Office should publish a report on every cyclone and national disaster.

He says this report would tell the public how it planned for it, what went well, what went wrong and what needs improvement.

He has also thanked all first responders.

Energy Fiji Limited says it will not be able to supply electricity to everyone in the Western Division until a fault on the 132,000 Volts transmission line between the Nadarivatu Power Station to the Vuda Zone Substation has been located and repaired.

The fault occurred last Friday as Tropical Cyclone Sarai affected the Western Division.

CEO Hasmukh Patel confirms that repairs to the fault is expected to be completed by tomorrow night.

He says the existing capacity at their Thermal Power Stations in the West which is in Vuda, Rakiraki, Nadi, and Sigatoka is not sufficient to meet 100% of the demand in the Western Division.

Patel says since then Energy Fiji Limited has been making efforts to carry out an inspection of the faulted line, however, their efforts on Friday and Saturday have been hampered by the weather.

He says the advice they received from their helicopter pilot was that the weather between Nadarivatu and Vuda was not safe to fly through.

Patel further says an attempt was made yesterday to carry out the helicopter patrol, however the inspection team had to abort the patrol due to poor visibility and high winds which made the helicopter patrol extremely dangerous.

He says a further attempt will be made later this morning to carry out the helicopter patrol along the faulted line.

He says their teams and contractors are carrying out the inspection of the line on foot in the areas which can be accessed safely.

Patel adds work will be carried out to repair the fault, after which the subject line will be energized so that hydro-power will be able to be transported from the Nadarivatu and Monasavu Hydro Power Stations to the Western Division.

Power has been restored to most of the Central Division except for Korovou and Nausori.

In Korovou only 25 percent of electricity supply has been restored while in Nausori 34% of electricity supply has been restored.

Energy Fiji Limited says full restoration in these two areas is expected to take place within a week.

80% of power supply has been restored in Lami and Energy Fiji Limited says full restoration is expected to take 2 days.

In Nasinu, almost 95% of the power supply has been restored and full restoration is expected by tomorrow.

93% of power supply has been restored in Suva while 89% of electricity has been restored in Navua, Deuba and Pacific Harbour.

EFL says power supply is expected to be fully restored to these areas in two days.