Belco called on customers to conserve energy as it investigates the cause of power outages that affected thousands of homes.Two blackouts hit 11,000 customers across the Island on Sunday — the eighth and ninth of the year so far.Yesterday, company president Andrew Parsons said: “The outage events over the past few weeks and Sunday are clearly unacceptable, and we are working diligently to resolve them as quickly as possible.“They appear to be unrelated to each other, however, we are investigating to see whether there is some connection. So, we are further looking at a wider range of plant and ancillary equipment, our operating regime and the system’s response. Additionally, we have representatives from our engine manufacturers arriving later today to work with us to effect engine repairs.”He said Belco’s electricity generating capacity was “close to demand” yesterday, but was expected to improve today when one of its largest generating units returns to service.He called for conservation throughout the weekend, as the company investigates the cause of recent outages and repairs system faults.Referring to criticisms levelled at the company via blogs and talk shows, Mr Parsons added: “Safety and reliability of electricity service are our highest priority. It is preposterous and irresponsible for anyone to suggest that Belco would deliberately cause outages to make a point to the Energy Commission, customers or the public at large.“The recent power outages are in no way connected to, or as a result of, the Energy Commission’s recent ruling regarding Belco’s rate application. Our mission is to provide secure, reliable, sustainable power, and that is what we come to work to do every day.”It was reported in March that the Energy Commission rejected a bid by the company to raise its rates for residential customers by 3.5 percent over three successive years until 2014.