SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 26 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A special team of 200 people from e-Distribución, the subsidiary of Endesa, is working non-stop to deal with the effects of tropical cyclone Hermine, which has affected the electricity grid in the Canary Islands with constant and copious rains that in some parts of the Archipelago they have reached up to 400 liters of water per square meter in just 48 hours.
In the early afternoon, the control room of the Distribution area recorded some 3,000 users pending recovery of the electricity supply. The island of Gran Canaria continues to be by far the most affected in its electricity network with 230 incidents registered at this time, followed by Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 78 incidents to be resolved. Both figures translate into a total of 308 breakdowns recorded in the early hours of Monday afternoon.
The effort made by the e-Distribution operation has been affected, especially in the afternoon yesterday, Sunday, by difficulties in accessibility to the points where the breakdowns were located, with the closure of roads due to landslides, as well as by flooding of tunnels and main roads.
Another factor that has influenced the work of the special device mobilized to deal with breakdowns on site has been the danger posed by the manipulation of the electrical networks coinciding with a constant fall of rain, which has led to extreme work safety measures in field work.
At this time, Gran Canaria is the island that poses the most problems, as numerous floods have been detected in transformation centers and substations as a result of clogged sewers, as well as wet medium-voltage wiring that causes power cuts.
Among the most affected municipalities in Gran Canaria are Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Telde, Ingenio, Santa Lucía and San Bartolomé de Tirajana. While in Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife stands out where, for example, intense work is currently being done to evacuate the water that floods the Manuel Cruz substation. The incidents have been happening in a very dispersed way throughout the different points of the archipelago.
Forecasts suggest that if the conditions of this adverse phenomenon do not worsen in the coming hours, the electricity supply may gradually return to normal in practically all the islands, except in Gran Canaria, where the total restitution of the fluid could take a little longer, as a consequence of the significant damage caused by water at various points in the electrical network.
E-Distribución acts at all times in coordination with the Canarian town councils, informing them and participating in the work of recovering the damaged wiring and evacuating the water from the flooded transformation centres.
