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Residents of Hay River, K'atl'odeeche First Nation and Enterprise are being asked to unplug appliances as Northwest Territories Power Corporation is struggling to restore power after issues with one of the diesel generators meant to take over for the Taltson Hydroelectric Dam.

A total power outage during a heat wave has impacted all three communities throughout the July 30 afternoon. Environment Canada issued a heat warning for the region on July 30, warning temperatures could get as high as 30 C.

NTPC communications manager Doug Prendergast referred 黑料吃瓜网 to posts published on the power corporation's social media feed, which began detailing the issue at 12:28 p.m. It was noted that there was an issue with a diesel engine and workers were on site. At 1:09 p.m. the utility reported the crew had determined the problem, though no details were immediately released.

Even though workers had identified the problem, ongoing mechanical issues continued to hamper repairs, with power only partially restored at 4:06 p.m.

"We would like to request that customers unplug appliances and other items so that when power begins to be restored, electricity demand is kept as low as possible, which will support further restoration as additional generation is brought back into service," wrote the utility at 3:26 p.m. "Thank you for your cooperation."

On July 29, NTPC conducted its annual Taltson summer shutdown for maintenance. The plan was to switch the region, which includes Hay River, KFN and Enterprise, Fort Smith and Fort Resolution. The hydro plant had only been online since March, after being deactivated for the previous two years to overhaul the hydro unit. That overhaul is intended to be completed over the three-week shut down.

As part of the July 29 notification of the shutdown, NTPC stated, "An additional rental diesel generator has been installed to back up the existing generator and to ensure reliable service in the community during the Taltson shutdown."

After getting power restored to the region, Prendergast explained what caused the power outage in the first place.

"The outage began when one of the generators at the Hay River power plant went offline unexpectedly, resulting in the loss of approximately 500 kilowatts of generation capacity," he explained. "We were in the process of returning one of the larger generators back online after several months of maintenance but were running it below capacity in order to monitor its performance. The loss of those 500 kilowatts created instability on the system and the outage began.

"As we started to add generation to replace that which had been lost, we experienced mechanical issues on two other generators that prevented us from being able to generate sufficient power to meet community demand.

"Due to the high temperatures yesterday in Hay River and surrounding area, community load was very high. Over the course of the afternoon and into early evening, workers were able to restore sufficient generation capacity to meet demand. Power was restored to different parts of the community as the day progressed and was fully restored to all NTPC customers in Hay River and Naka Power customers in Ka虂t艂鈥檕deeche First Nation and Enterprise by approximately 7:30 pm."