Explosion at Blue Mountains substation cuts power to thousands twice in a week

An explosion at the Blaxland Zone Substation in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, produced smoke but no fire and left more than 5,500 residents without power during heat of about 40 degrees Celsius. It was the second incident at the same substation within a week, following a fire there three days earlier that left 7,514 people without power and required crews to repair damaged cables. The operator, Endeavour Energy, said a faulty cable was to blame for the second outage, apologised to affected customers and said it was investigating the cause of both incidents. NSW Fire and Rescue attended. Power had been restored to 1,300 residents within hours of the second event. After the first outage the company had asked customers in the lower Blue Mountains to limit electricity use, including turning off pool pumps and limiting air conditioning, while repairs were carried out.

Endeavour Energy attributed the second outage to a faulty cable. The incidents occurred during very high temperatures, with 39.5 degrees Celsius recorded in Blaxland, which increases demand on the network. The cause of the first fire was still being investigated at the time of reporting.

1. After a substation fault, associated cables and plant should be inspected for related or latent damage before the asset is returned to full service.
2. Operators should hold contingency plans for repeat failures at the same asset, particularly during periods of peak demand such as heatwaves.
3. Clear and timely public communication on outage causes, demand reduction requests and expected restoration times reduces customer impact during repeated grid failures.

News report via Google News