WILLEMSTAD - During a meeting of Parliament’s Central Committee, utility company Aqualectra clarified that the prolonged island-wide power outage of August 26–27 was not caused by wind fluctuations, but that these did act as a trigger leading to the collapse of the electricity system.

Members of Parliament questioned Aqualectra about the company’s reserve capacity, previous system failures, the role of renewable energy, and the oversight exercised by the Regulatory Authority Curaçao (RAC). Lawmakers also pressed the company on when the population can expect lower electricity and water tariffs.

Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Rudolf Garmes explained that within just half an hour, 25 separate incidents occurred, ultimately leading to the blackout. According to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Neysa Isenia, the outage could potentially have been avoided if Aqualectra had already possessed energy storage batteries at the time — equipment that has since become operational.

The company assured Parliament that steps are being taken to strengthen system stability and prevent similar large-scale power failures in the future.