Last Tuesday you heard the chairman of the BEL Board of Directors say that the San Pedro Gas Turbine was still not operational after the failure of one of the transformers that are used to connect the turbine to the grid. That turbine should have been up and running mid-June. But now it's being delayed even longer.
And according to a release from BEL, the delay means that they will, quote, "have to continue to monitor the power demand in San Pedro during peak demand hours and take precautionary measures where necessary to protect the submarine cable until the San Pedro Gas Turbine is brought online." End quote.
However, once that is completed around the end of July, the turbine facility will add 20 megawatts of firm backup generation capacity.
In the meantime the island remains on something like a power ration based on the 17.4 megawatt capacity of the 25 year old submarine cable which is its sole source of power.
