A three hour power outage surprised residents in the Robson Valley last Tuesday Oct 16th. Roughly 2604 customers were out of power from 1:44pm until 4:15pm.
BC Hydro spokesperson Jennifer Walker-Larsen says the outage was due to a disconnected wire in the substation equipment.
She says BC Hydro is currently working on a project to upgrade the Valemount substation that will improve reliability for Valemount and area customers. Two days earlier, on Oct. 14, 2012, BC Hydro crews installed a mobile substation to serve area customers while the project work at the substation is underway. This was during a planned six-hour outage.
BC Hydro’s automated protection system shut down the transmission line to the substation causing the un-planned outage. Walker-Larsen says much like a car’s onboard computer, BC Hydro’s automated protection system constantly monitors transmission and distribution lines and shuts off power if sensors detect unusual conditions; this helps to protect public safety and system equipment. BC Hydro crews re-connected the wire and service was safely restored by 4:15 pm.
For updated outage information, available also through your mobile smart phone, please visit bchydro.com. To report an outage, call BC Hydro at 1 888 POWERON (1 888 769 3766), *HYDRO (*49376) on your cell phone or log into your BC Hydro account.
