Unalaska, AK – For the past month, Unalaska has experienced a series of total and partial power outages, with three occurring in the past week alone. The outages have come as the city of Unalaska has transitioned to new generators for power production. In November, the two Wartsila generators at the new powerhouse were tested and connected to the city's electrical grid, and the new powerhouse formally went online in December.

But Public Utilities has avoided using one of the new generators because of a warranty issue. A valve seal on one of the heads of the generator was leaking a small bit of oil, and technicians have been working on repairs to the equipment. Efforts to bring that generator online have triggered some outages, says Dan Winters, the director of Public Utilities.

"We had maintenance people in town working on one of the Wartsilas, and switching the machines from one machine to another caused the town's substation breakers to trip," says Winters.

But not every outage has been a side effect of the powerhouse transition period. The total blackout caused last night - the second total blackout since the new powerhouse went online - was actually caused by an unexpected malfunction.

"Last night's power outage was caused from a broken oil line on the governor," says Winters. "Just one of them unseen things."

Maintenance is expected to wrap up today, and Winters says that Public Utilities does not anticipate anymore power outages in the immediate future. Still, he says, with the transition period, you never know.

"You know, for the first six months, you're going to be working out little details like this," says Winters. "And hopefully, it won't take that long. But I can tell you we got them all whipped and figured them all out, but I would be saying something I'm not sure about. If anything else happens, we try to get the electricity online as soon as possible."