Cause of Wailea Outage Attributed to Contamination

Two generating units at the Maalaea Power Plant tripped off line at around 1:37 p.m. on 3/1/12 prompting calls for water conservation. MECO Maalaea Power Plant, file photo by Wendy Osher.

By Wendy Osher

The cause of a widespread outage in South Maui on Friday is being attributed to contamination of a power line in Māʻalaea, according to a spokesperson with Maui Electric Company.

The incident knocked out power to an estimated 15,000 electrical customers in Kīhei and Wailea at around 1:39 p.m. on Friday, May 9, 2014.

Following an inspection of electrical lines and equipment company representatives say the initial cause appears to be contamination, meaning that “something came in contact with the line which caused the short resulting in the outage.  It is unclear as to what may have contacted the line,” said MECO spokesperson Kauʻi Awai-Dickson.

Maui Electric Company says power restoration began 10 minutes later, and all affected customers were brought back online by 2:14 p.m. on Friday.

The company apologized for the inconvenience caused by the interruption and thanked the affected public for their understanding and patience.