Grid infrastructureUnited StatesEIR-2079

Capacitor fire at United Illuminating substation in New Haven prompts nearby evacuation

Aug 2020Published 6 Oct 2026

SignificantThermal / fireProvisionalNext update 7 OctNorth America

Estimated damage ModelledLow confidencesupply cut for •• days

From the recordRoot cause Failed part

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Companies named in this entry: United Illuminating

What happened

On Wednesday 12 August 2020 New Haven firefighters put out a fire at the United Illuminating substation on Water Street in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Firefighters reported a working fire for a transformer-related blaze at 1.34pm. The fire involved a "large capacitor device" at the substation, which serves more than 30,000 customers in downtown New Haven and the Hill neighbourhood. The city's emergency management director said the fire was brought under control shortly before 3.13pm. The fire did not affect residential electricity customers, but some large facilities, including Yale New Haven Hospital, moved to generator power. A nearby medical facility was evacuated.

Lessons learned

Include capacitor banks in substation fire risk assessments and inspections, as they can fail and burn like transformers.
Make sure critical customers such as hospitals near a substation have tested backup generation, as Yale New Haven Hospital needed it here.

Source

nhregister.com

Other entries that name Haven

Transformer fire in New Haven causes outages and a road closure EIR-1674 · 2026

Published 2026-10-06. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.

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