Public Utilities Minister Chides Opposition MP Over “Blackout Misinformation”

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Public Utilities Minister Chides Opposition MP Over “Blackout Misinformation”

Rather unfortunate is how Minister of Public Utilities, Marvin Gonzales, describes what he terms deliberately misleading misinformation disseminated to the national community by a sitting Member of Parliament for the United National Congress relating to the circumstances surrounding the island-wide blackout, which occurred on February 16th.

Minister Gonzales indicated that Princes Town MP Barry Padarath, at a news briefing on Sunday, claimed that his statement in Parliament on February 18th, in response to an urgent question, contradicted previous statements made by the General Manager of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission’s on the causes of the island-wide blackout.

Minister Gonzales said in the interest of transparency and truthfulness, he produced an excerpt of his statement in Parliament on February 16th.

Minister Gonzales said at 12:52 p.m., a short circuit fault occurred on a 12,000 volts overhead line which crosses under the two 220,000 volts transmission overhead lines, which connects the T&TEC system to the Trinidad Generation Unlimited power station in La Brea, the system’s largest power station.

Minister Gonzales said as a result of the fault, initial indications are that the 12k V overhead line conductor burst and made contact with both 220k V transmission circuits causing them to suffer simultaneous short circuit faults.

The Public Utilities Minister said protective systems immediately took these transmission circuits out of service, as they were designed to, resulting however in the instantaneous disconnection of the Trinidad Generation Unlimited power station from the T&TEC system.

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