Thank you, Madam Speaker. I know how important that event was to the Pauktuutit gathering and certainly I know the amount of work and effort that was put into preparing all the presentations made by women and residents all across the Northwest Territories. The information I received regarding the power outage was those two units were operating and the newly-installed Wartsila unit tripped off due to an inadequately designed level switch. The manufacturer has since provided us with design modifications so that it doesn't happen again.
At the time of the outage, two units were running in Iqaluit. Normally, when one unit fails, a relay protection system is supposed to interrupt only a sufficient number of the distribution feeders coming out of the power house to ensure that the remaining unit can continue to carry on without overloading. When the entire town went out, the plant operator had to initiate a back-start of the generating unit to re-establish station service, followed by the restoration of service to the community. He first attempted to start the smallest unit, which is called a KS6, which is normal under these operating conditions. The KS6 failed to hold when the operator attempted to re-establish the station service. He then made a second attempt with the same result and the problem has been since been attributed to another part of the protection system.
When that wouldn't work, he attempted to start the new CAT unit and this unit failed to run up to the rated speed. The problem has since been traced to the program logic controller with remedial action under way. At the time, the operator then decided to start yet another unit, the K8, followed by the EMD and the services were restored.
Madam Speaker, when a large diesel generator is cold started, it cannot generate power right away, thus the long period to get back into play. Apparently, the unit must be run for several minutes to allow the temperature, oil pressure, et cetera, to normalize before it can be loaded. The fact that a number of units had to be started in sequence contributed to the length of this particular outage. In discussing this with the Power Corporation, they also feel very badly that this power outage had to happen during this very special occasion. Thank you.