Loss of Wind Farm Cuts Power to HELCO Customers

More than 4,000 Hawaii Electric Light Co. customers were briefly left without power at about mid-day today when a North Kohala wind farm tripped off-line.

A HELCO spokesman said the 11:29 a.m. outage at Hawi Renewable Development Wind Farm forced the utility to cut some circuits to protect equipment.

As a result, the loss of power affected customers in Kohala, Pepeekeo, Kaloko and parts of Hilo.

HELCO started additional generation and was able to restore electricity to the 4,369 affected customers within seven minutes, the spokesman said.

The cause of the interruption at the wind farm had not yet been determined.  The company provides about 10 megawatts to the Big Island power grid.

Another outage at Hawi Renewable Development on Jan. 5 cut electricity to more than 6,500 HELCO customers.