Intruder at Brechin Castle Substation causes widespread power dip

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) says an at­tempt­ed act of van­dal­ism at its Brechin Cas­tle Sub­sta­tion caused a sig­nif­i­cant volt­age dip across parts of the coun­try at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 9.45 a.m. to­day.

In a state­ment, T&TEC said the in­ci­dent oc­curred when an in­trud­er en­tered the sub­sta­tion and came in­to con­tact with a 132 kV break­er, caus­ing a fault that re­sult­ed in the volt­age dip. The Com­mis­sion said the na­tion­al elec­tric­i­ty grid re­mained sta­ble and wide­spread out­ages were pre­vent­ed be­cause the sys­tem's pro­tec­tive mech­a­nisms op­er­at­ed as in­tend­ed to min­imise the im­pact.

Ac­cord­ing to T&TEC, se­cu­ri­ty footage showed the in­trud­er re­ceived an elec­tric shock and fell to the ground be­fore get­ting up and flee­ing the scene with­out his tools. Au­thor­i­ties lat­er ap­pre­hend­ed the sus­pect and took him for med­ical treat­ment for se­vere burns.

T&TEC re­mind­ed the pub­lic that tam­per­ing with or in­ter­fer­ing with its in­fra­struc­ture can re­sult in elec­tro­cu­tion and se­ri­ous in­jury. The Com­mis­sion urged peo­ple to stay away from over­head lines, sub­sta­tions and re­lat­ed equip­ment.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion about acts of van­dal­ism can anony­mous­ly con­tact T&TEC at 474-8467.