Explosion and fire at Evergy substation in Shawnee, Kansas causes mass outages

An explosion and fire occurred at the Evergy substation at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Lackman Road in Shawnee, Kansas, in the Kansas City metro area, on a Thursday night in June 2021. The source gives this location in the article text, and gives 65th Street and Lackman Road in a photo caption. The incident caused widespread power outages, with Evergy initially reporting more than 11,600 customers without power and the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) reporting more than 9,000 affected customers. The explosion also knocked out the Nearman Power Plant and three additional substations in Kansas City, Kansas, affecting the Rosedale and Central City areas. The BPU spokesperson said those substations were back online by 9.25pm. Outages were reduced to about 6,500 customers by 10pm and to 3,311 by 11pm. By 5.30am the following morning, Evergy reported 116 customers still without power and BPU reported six. The cause was not reported.

Not reported. The source does not state what caused the explosion or fire.

1. A single substation failure can cascade to affect connected facilities, including generating plant and neighbouring substations, so contingency analysis should consider knock-on loss of supply points.
2. Staged restoration reporting shows that the large majority of affected customers can be returned within hours where switching alternatives exist, which supports planning for network reconfiguration.
3. Regular public outage updates during a major substation failure help customers and emergency services plan, and give a clear record of restoration timelines.

News report via Google News