Substation fire in Algiers leaves thousands without power

What happened

More than 9,000 Algiers residents lost power after a fire at an Entergy substation on 5 January 2024. The cause was still under investigation. Power was fully restored just before 1pm. Sewer pumping stations on the West Bank lost supply, and flow to the West Bank wastewater plant stopped. The report says these stations do not have backup power on site. The Sewerage and Water Board asked residents to limit water use until power returned to the pumps at around 1pm, after which normal use resumed.

Contributing factors

The cause of the fire was not reported and remained under investigation. The sewer pumping stations affected by the outage were reported to have no on-site backup power.

Lessons learned

1. Wastewater pumping stations can stop during a substation outage if they have no on-site backup supply.
2. Customer notices should say which critical services are affected and when normal use can resume.
3. Until investigators report a cause, operators should not treat a substation fire as explained.

Source

nola.com