DOMLEC officials say a landslide at Picard was the cause of a recent power outage which left thousands of DOMLEC customers without electricity for several hours on Sunday.
The company’s Public Relations Officer, Adina Bellot-Valentine, said DOMLEC’s “entire system” was affected by the landslide.
According to the information provided to DNO by the island’s sole power provider, the following areas were affected by Sunday’s outage:
-Entire Sugar Loaf West from Sugar Loaf to Caupuchin down to Ti-Baie
-Entire Sugar Loaf East from Sugar Loaf to North End Marigot
-Entire Portsmouth Feeder from Fond Cole to Ti-Baie (that is on the west coast)
-Entire South Feeder from Morne Prosper to Petite Savanne
-Part of Belfast Feeder from National Bank in Canefield to Wet Area and DCP
When pressed by DNO as to why one landslide could cause such an extensive power cut, Bellot-Valentine said slides “cause extensive damage to HV lines and transformers – a lot of damage can be done.”
“Our system is a lot more robust but these things do happen from time to time,” she explained.
ReeAreLeeTee
I’m not sure if you understand what redundancy is.
Ok. Call it disaster preparedness then or proactive planning.(ReeAreLeeTee)
People, when things are bad I say so, but when things are unavoidable, let’s not play devil’s advocate.
Please educate yourselves about electricity production and distribution before making some of these ridiculous comments.
Power distribution all over the world from the most to least developed gets interrupted by landslides, hail, wind and yes lightening. In fact last year and the year before sun spots cause major interruptions in the US and Europe. To say that a landslide should not prevent a major outage in power production just sounds uninformed. Do you know what happens if you short out both sides of a 1.5V (penlite)battery? Yes, it will heat up and burst the battery. Now imagine what would happen with 11KV (11000V); not to mention that a short will cause the current to spike to at least 3 times its normal.
I think Domlec showed great improvement from the days when minor lightening storms caused island wide power failures to now a sectionalized failure and return to normal operation in a manner of hours.
When good is done let them be rewarded, because when they do bad we don’t hesitate to let them know.
There must be a thorough investigation into the dealings of Domlec and their contractors.
I bet you all dominicans that at the end of this investigation, you may be surprised as to how many people going to jail.
Since i was a little boy, we have had load shedding. Now im 50 we still have the same DAMN thing. What the HELL is this?
I’m quite sure that if DOMLEC had to take their investigations to more depth a lot of domestic and even industrial places would have to face jail time too.
Make sure your back yard clean before making such comments.
Nuff said.
Obviously redundancy did not play a role in the initial planning of power distribution.
Redundancy? I wish you would return to explain. From what I understand about power production and transmission, redundancy would be in the protection. Hence, the protection did work because the entire island was not left without power.
It’s called reinvesting. In HYDRO, HYDRO….did I say Hydro? ?? Reinvesting in fault tollerance, distributing power more efficiently.
Reinvesting in order to attract small to midsize manufacturing, in effect making more profits.
Domlec needs to quit stressing on just profits while passing oil surcharges to us. One day, one day, we will have to stomach it and agree to do without power for a few days or weeks and stand up to this company.
I do not understand how you seem to view business. If you run a pizza business and offer delivery. Do you only charge the cost of the pizza and not the delivery? Does the price of your pizza not include the cost of the fuel (cooking gas), labor, ingredients (flour, salt, veges, etc.)? If not then I’m going to tell you that your business will definitely fail. Make sense people. If you run a business and are not concerned about the profits then you are a bad CEO or manager because at the end of the month you can’t pay your workers and you’re going to ask for a government bail out.
Nuff said.
but it did have a landslide it happen aroung 6am or so that was close too where i work this time i can say it did have it is just that doDomlec should put the landslide picture so oders can see
Now you see? this is reality. This person is saying that there was no landslide.
DOMLEC, please furnish us with some more info about this landslide; hopefully with pictures.
DNO, please get some more info on this for us.
Interesting I was up north driving through Castle Bruce into Portsmouth and I had not noticed any remnants of a landslide along the way. I was driving and didn’t come across any Domlec workmen on the way either. Did I miss a turn or something?
NO U JUS DIDNT SEE IT BUT ITS THERE
Of course you miss something, you miss the fact that Picard does not constitute the HIGHWAY ONLY! Picard also has an interior miles away from the highway. Now if you were driving through bananatrail heights where it occoured you would not have missed anything because from the hill at Tomato restaurant you would see the slide effects way ahead of you on the mountains.
Thank you for this information. Domlec should give you one month free power for clearing that up. No one else so far seemed to know exactly where it happened.
Today is Wednesday! IS that true? This happen on Sunday… Telling me this now what benefit is it to me? Is my Electricity bill going to reflect power outage for several hours? Why wasn’t there an announcement on the radio immediately when this happened?
You wouldn’t hear it on the radio, as your radio wont work without electricity
I agree with you. I find this news very strange!!!
even if we dont have power for a week we get the same bill, domlec just ..
Are we some of the stupidest people on this earth? Whenever something happens it’s “God this” and “God that”. Some people bahave as if we cannot mitigate the effects of nature.
Pedro made a good point about Domlec having equipment in place to isolate power outages in the event of such natural disasters, but this fool keeps coming with this ridiculous notion that we should go cower in a corner because God is in control.
Sometimes I wonder why these nincompoops don’t just let intelligent people talk while they listen.
I myself even crossing my fingers, because in the area where i live ALWAYS have outages. I even surprised we didn’t get that too.
thank God the people of d/a is ok the had working guys will take care of this problem i know as soon as thay can people without there lights just give the guys some time to do there work and do it right dont worry about pay your life is what you need have are bless day all dominica and to the guys take you’ll time and be safe on the job GOD bless all of you had working people in our sweeeeeet d/a one love
Domlec still has not mastered proper line discrimination to isolate faults without bringing the whole system down and inconveniencing all its customers. Not only that, effective protection saves the company equipment as well. This should not still be happening with Domlec. The answer from Domlec on this is unacceptable and hides the real truth. Something is wrong with the system engineering and/or its management. Yes the root cause is the landslide but the substantial secondary effect is due to an ineffective or failed protection system. Domlec has gone way beyond the learning curve on that one, as such scenarios have been a stigma for years and years. (On a simple analogy it would be like saying a defective light switch in your bedroom knocked out your electricity in your entire house). This should not be happen at this stage, not with the supposed investment in equipment and manpower. We would appreciate if DNO follows up and enquires with Domlec’s Engineering manager on how this could have been avoided, because it should have been. Customers deserve much better. DNO, please take this further. Thanks
I totally agree with you on this point. How can one landslide affect the entire system?
DOMLEC’s response is paltry at best. I think DOMLEC can do better than this. Geez.
When God is in control do not blame your brotherman. It was caused by a disaster (LANDSLIDE). God keep giving us warning to clean our tongues and thought but we are not taking notice. A landslide is an act of God. Always remember that. There are times if have slides and this don’t happen.
Dominica, stop being a fool….we all know that a landslide is an act of nature. But the important question is how can one landslide affect the entire system. It appears DOMLEC’s system is unable to isolate problems without bringing down the whole system. That is the crucial question.
Stop being simple minded man…. geez
Well outlined Pedro….Guess Domlec is not at that High Calibre of Tech as yet…Dominica should Invest in Sub Stations to Curb Massive Outages…
They the main Provider so they should command that Level of Distinction…
But Again its Dominica..so nothing to be alarmed about…
while i agree one landlside shouldnt cuz all that effect u should also know that the system is a network and that mean they are tied to each other. therefore alot of de times wen somefing happens in one area it affects other area. some area are affected significantly while some are less
Another Caricom country which boasts one of the better networks in the region, suffered a complete island wide black out about 2 weeks ago, due to problems arising at one single substation. So do not be too hard on Domlec.
An island wide blackout is not un-heard of in all the islands but in most places it is rare; and likely to be associated with critical failure at a power plant or major station. The island wide in this case is still unacceptable given the fault location; but also the wider point is such types of system failure have happened before over and over again on the island over the decades. A properly engineered system has sufficient protection to not only discriminate between small faults and large faults, temporary faults and permanent faults, but also allows one system to continue in service whereas the other part of the network remains. Domlec has systems (and knowledge) in place which theoretically can do that, and quite aware of what it takes to do that through numerous studies over the years. There are a number of possibilities why it still happened, but this is no start up company feeling their way, nor is it rocket science or unexplored territory at all. It is still unacceptable. As mentioned in my earlier analogy, in your own home you may have three or more circuits protected by fuses or circuit breakers. A fault from one circuit (say in the bedroom lamp) in a properly working system should and usually does take out only just that section of your home’s circuit, unless the fault is say in the main breaker or line. Although this is a simple analogy, in principle any utility network operates in much the same manner and are much more sophisticated. A utility network engineered or should be to allow for network security and maximum customer protection; but also minimum outage. We have to hold Domlec’s feet to the fire and not simply accept covered up answers that point to a vestige of the past and acts of god. It is not the act in itself but the ability of the network to deal with the situation, and the systems design in place, settings, operations and maintenance thereof, expertise and management capabilities. That, is the real issue at hand.
One landslide in Picard (of all places) in good weather causes almost the whole of D/ca to be without power?!!
I have a feeling that there may be some persons in Domlec management that are trying to cutback in some essential services so they can maximize their yearly bonus.
I would really like to know what perventative measures are being put in place to ensure such an event does not re-occur!
Have you seen the slide? Because I have. Anything happens in any weather.
Jayson my friend, landslides don’t need rain to occur. They can occur when the temperatures are very high or they may occur when the rainwater lubricates the earth.
However I am disappointed to hear that such a slid can affect power for the entire island in such a way. Its scary to think that…
ALAS poor us. is we the consumers that going to pay for that
Please be real, Landside is an act of God.
Please think straight before making your comments.
We would not have liked the electricity to go off but there are things that are beyond man.
God is in control.
You seem not to understand, or maybe reading is not your thing. We all know that landslide is an act of nature,the question is, why should one landslide affect the entire country. There are devices which exist before i was born that are able to isolate the troubled area from the rest of the country, it’s like the circuit breaker in your main switch which will disable power in your kitchen if your electric kettle interrupts the power through short circuit or overload, in which time the rest of your household will remain powered. This is simple technology. I was in Marigot on Sunday, the power stayed off for many hours where as it was resumed a lot quicker in Mahaut, come on Adina, if you do not know try not making a fool of the Dominican public.
Wen the earth move that’s god speaking to us,the government we hve in power is to evil,instead of a war against corruption there’s a war on the ganga lord