(Trinidad Guardian) Public Utilities Minister Nizam Baksh was misinformed when he made statements in Parliament last Tuesday that the Cove Industrial Estate in Tobago was responsible for blackouts in Tobago. That is according to vice president of Wartsila Caribbean Inc Rodney George. The company is responsible for the equipment at the Cove Industrial Estate in Tobago.
Some of the claims made by Baksh was that the population of the sister isle had been used as guinea pigs for testing new technology in electricity generators and that its implementation had cost taxpayers over TT$30 million. In an e-mail to the T&T Guardian George said: “I believe Minister Baksh was misinformed as T&TEC knows full well the extent of our support at the Cove plant since it went into service in 2009.”
He said his company outfitted the Cove plant with equipment that had been tested previously. He added: “The Wartsila Dual Fuel (DF) technology was introduced into the market in 1995. The Cove plant was commissioned in October 2009 and is equipped with four (4) Wartsila 18V50DF Dual Fuel engines.
“At the time we won the competitive international tender (put out by T&TEC) for the Cove plant in 2007, there were already over 36 engines in service representing some 504 MW installed in power plants in various parts of the world, with an additional 102 MW aboard LNG carriers.”
He added as of February 2012 Wartsila had 108 engines in the marine service and 238 engines in land-based power plants which when put together represent more than 2.8 million operating hours. He added that customer confidence was high and other Caribbean nations were now investing in the same technology that was installed at Cove Industrial Estate, Tobago.
He did admit that there may have been some problems with the plant in Tobago but added that they were not anything major. He said: “With regards to problems at Cove, as with any plant, there have been component failures which Wartsila has fixed or replaced under warranty.
“Despite these problems, if you check with T&TEC you will find that the overall plant availability has been in the 95-plus percentile range. We might also add that there are maintenance issues at the plant that need to be addressed by T&TEC.” “T&TEC has acknowledged that at the time the plant was designed and constructed, Wartsila did not have sufficient input from T&TEC to anticipate the dynamic behaviour of the system under certain abnormal conditions (example loss of one or both cables).”
He said that was why there had been blackouts in Tobago and that his company and T&TEC were working together to resolve those issues.
