The nation’s electricity supplier has had a record number of power surges in the past weeks mainly in Upolu with close to 20 outages being reported from various areas.

Although power outage happens from time to time across the islands the regular fluctuating electricity supply in the recent weeks was the new norm from the Electric Power Corporation. 

The disruption frustrated many residents who suffered damages to household appliances and businesses were also impacted by turning away customers and others incurring unforeseen costs due to electrical faults. 

The E.P.C. engineers and workers scrambled to fix the power problems even late at night and early hours in poor weather conditions to replace and carry out repair work.  

On the E.P.C. Facebook page in the last two weeks, it made more than 10 notifications to inform the public about power outages in different zones and areas in Upolu and Savaii.

While the corporation reported that power has been restored to certain areas the members of the public continued to report power surges in the restored areas. 

According to E.P.C., most of the emergency shutdown incidents in Upolu were attributed to transformer failure that needed replacement and fallen trees that affected high voltage power lines.  

The industrial area in Vaitele had multiple power surges and outages almost daily. Businesses had to resort to generators to continue their operations. 

Several attempts have been made to obtain comments from the E.P.C. General Manager, Faumui Iese Toimoana but have been unsuccessful. 

In a recent interview with the General Manager, he denied the power surges had anything to do with the corporation’s low reserve to upgrade and replace its infrastructure. 

Faumui maintained if the claim that the corporation had no money was true it would not have been able to restore power in the affected areas. 

He also explained that some of the reason why there is electrical fault and overload in a transformer is because some households do not obtain permits for the installation of new appliances causing overload. 

However, the E.P.C. Manager for Finance and Commerce, Palelemafuta Sofia Silipa responded to concerns raised on social media about power outage alleging there was no reserve left. 

She also claimed it is what happens when there is political influence with running the entity responsibly. 

 “I mean what can one do when you’re forced to sell your product at almost half the cost of your production? 

“Well, when you run out of reserves built up over years for asset maintenance, replacement, upgrade etc, you continue to do your best with the bare minimum resources you have, keeping your fingers crossed and hoping that nothing major will collapse. 

“Unfortunately, it is starting with your area, the existing transformer in your area has failed due to overload, and most of the households in your area probably had their airconditioning units on.”