The St Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC) has attributed last weekend’s islandwide blackout to an “unexpected fault” on an 11 kilovolt (11kV) breaker within its Cul-de-Sac electricity network.
In a statement, the utility company explained that the fault activated automatic protection systems designed to prevent serious equipment damage, resulting in a full shutdown of the electricity system.
“The fault triggered the automatic protection systems designed to prevent significant equipment damage resulting in the total shutdown of the electricity system,” LUCELEC said, adding that “preliminary investigations have since confirmed that the fault was initiated by rodent interference with the 11 kV breaker” on May 1.
The company noted that while “wildlife accidents are rare and are well recognised risks in power systems globally,” it maintains multiple layers of protection intended to contain such incidents and prevent wider system damage.
LUCELEC said electricity restoration began less than an hour after the outage, with power gradually returned to customers across the island following system checks and inspections.
The utility has also launched a detailed post-incident technical review as part of its standard procedures. “This review will assess the sequence of events, system performance, and existing mitigation measures to ensure they operated as expected. Its results will guide any further actions required to strengthen resilience and reduce the likelihood of recurrence,” the company said.
LUCELEC apologised to customers for the disruption, describing it as an unplanned islandwide outage, and reaffirmed its commitment to service reliability.
The company said it remains “committed to delivering a safe, reliable, and resilient electricity service and will continue investing in infrastructure, system protection, and operational improvements in service to the people of St Lucia.”
 has attributed last weekend’s islandwide blackout to an “unexpected fault”.){kind=link}