Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

In the midst of winter weather, we tend to have multiple opportunities to acknowledge the things we take for granted. Roads become too dangerous to navigate, businesses shut down and we even lose power. City and county employees generally work overtime to fix these obstacles and power companies put their backup plans in place. But what if these plans are lacking or don’t even exist?

Power protection technologies are generally put in place to prevent major losses. For Providenciales, in the islands of Turks and Caicos, the only power plant in existence failed and left the island in a complete blackout. As a result, residents had to throw out food, businesses lost a day of processes, hotels watched tourists leave in droves and students missed out on a day of education.

FortisTCI staff focused on fixing two major problems, which left residents without power for up to 48 hours. Company President and CEO Eddinton Powell explained that the failure that led to this complete breakdown was in essence the perfect storm of what could go wrong in a technical situation. In short, it could not have been worse.

Even the right power protection may have been challenged when an explosion and electrical fire occurred in one of the power plant’s three main switchgear rooms. While the room is not manned, it is monitored by cameras and fire-sensing equipment. Staff members were alerted to the emergency and automatic dousing set in, which prompted workers to rush to the scene in an attempt to put out the flames.

This is not the case of an outdated or dilapidated system that couldn’t handle newer power innovations. The plant is based on a very sophisticated system, one that shouldn’t fail to this degree. Company leaders believe the source of the problem could be older underground cables running across the system that have a tendency to fail from time to time.

This tendency is why homes and businesses need robust and proven power protection technologies. There are too many things we rely on consistently that require power. A loss of power can shut down our businesses, render a number of processes and capabilities useless and block our ability to watch a favorite show when the tablet battery runs out.