By Jasz Garrett
Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Juneau experienced an area-wide power outage on Easter morning at 6:10 a.m. due to a generator tripping out at Lake Dorothy. Alaska Electric Light & Power (AEL&P) crew immediately responded.
The generation tripping out at Lake Dorothy caused a load shed, Debbie Driscoll, AEL&P Vice President and Director of Consumer Affairs & Human Resources, said.
“The system is designed so that when you lose generation it sheds load to keep the system in balance. It’s a protective measure, which is automated in the system. If we lose a large portion of our generation, the system automatically sheds load to balance that, so that it keeps the system working properly.”
For a system to operate properly, generation and load have to be equal.
As power was restored, a fuse burned up between Lena Loop and Tee Harbor. The crew opened the Lena 1 feeder which cut power temporarily to everyone north of Lena Cove in order to safely complete the repair.
“When we restored power to the Lena Loop, one feeder, which essentially feeds everyone from Lena Cove north out the road, that failed, essentially. Customers from about Tee Harbor north, also including Tee Harbor didn’t get restored,” she said. “The crew came out and replaced that fuse. But in order to do that, they need to make sure that the system is offline.They need to make sure that it’s not energized. And so they have to open it at the feeder, which is what they did. And then they got power restored. We want to say from when they actually opened the feeder, maybe like 30 to 40 minutes after that, they were able to close the feeder back in and everyone came back on out the road.”
Each AEL&P substation has three or four feeders. A feeder is an area that gets fed power from that substation. The Lena substation has three feeders, and Lena One is the longest feeder that goes from Lena Cove all the way to the end of the line past the Methodist Camp.
After power was restored out the road, all areas of town were successfully back with power. The crew is continuing to investigate the cause of the generator tripping at Lake Dorothy.
Driscoll added that it’s her priority to communicate with customers as quickly as possible. Their crews respond immediately whether it’s a power outage that affects a couple of houses or an area-wide outage. Information and updates can always be found on AEL&P’s social media and website. Customers are welcome to call an after-hours line at (907) 586-AELP. Just know that if there is a power outage, it’s likely AEL&P is already responding, Driscoll said.
In the event of a power outage, make sure you can stay warm and keep candles in your house for light sources. Ensure your phones stay charged to be prepared for power outages.
“We do restore power quickly, we have a full diesel backup if we ever need it. In this case, of course we didn’t. We were able to do everything with our hydro,” she said. “But if there was something significant that happened we can restore with diesel and still get power back up within an hour or two.”
If someone still does not have power, Driscoll recommended to check your main breaker.
This article has been updated to correct that it was Lake Dorothy, not Lake Dorsey.
