Fire at Musaga substation disrupts power in five counties

What happened

A fire broke out at the Musaga Substation in Kakamega on the night of 7 August, affecting electricity supply across Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, Siaya and parts of Vihiga counties. Kenya Power rerouted supply through six alternative substations: Webuye, Mumias, Eldoret, Kitale, Kisumu and Rang'ala. Approximately 90 per cent of customers were restored, though some continued to experience low voltage under the temporary arrangements. Personnel worked to recover damaged control and protection cables, to lay new cables for protection on the 132/33kV lines serving Tororo, Webuye, Lessos and Mumias, and to secure replacement transformers so the substation could return to full capacity.

Lessons learned

1. A substation fire requires pre-planned reroutes through multiple neighbouring sites to limit outages across several counties.
2. Fire damage to control and protection cables on 132/33kV lines delays full restoration until new cables are laid.
3. Temporary supply arrangements after a substation fire can leave some customers with low voltage until replacement transformers arrive.

More lessons on emergency response and public communication, electrical protection and isolation, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Not yet known

• Cause of the fire
• Age of the substation equipment
• Cost of cable and transformer replacement
• Time until full capacity was restored

This entry is updated when these are reported. Get an alert for the next one like it.

Source

kenyans.co.ke