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ASPA apologizes to east siders for recent series of power outages

American Samoa Power Authority (ASPA) logo
blue@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The American Samoa Power Authority (ASPA) has issued an apology to residents of the east side, who have experienced a handful of power outages over the past month.

Responding to Samoa News inquiries this week, ASPA said its T&D team have been trying to locate an "intermittent fault" on the east side of the island for over a month now.

The areas affected by this distribution line fault include Laulii all the way to Onenoa.

"Intermittent faults are sometimes difficult to locate, simply because they are temporary, but recurring," says the semi-autonomous agency.

The fault or signs of the fault aren't there "when you are looking for it, making it difficult to locate."

('Permanent faults' on the other hand, are permanent — as the name suggests — and are easier to locate and repair. Whereas 'transient faults' are very short, temporary faults that self clear, allowing the line to be re-energized on most occasions. Intermittent faults are temporary but keep occurring.)

ASPA crews located an "electrical short" on one riser cable earlier this week, and this could have been the cause of the outages, according to ASPA.

For now, says ASPA, work continues with a  pole-by-pole line hardware inspection, infra-red testing, and cable vault and riser cable inspections. Meanwhile, the protection settings on the vacuum fault interrupter (VFI) at Laulii have been reviewed and adjusted.   

"Without a doubt, ASPA crews will eventually find and repair this fault if not done yet; it is just a matter of time," says ASPA.

While east siders continue to voice complaints about the recent series of outages, ASPA reminds the public that they are not able to make any prior public notifications of outages because they do happen unexpectedly.