Reported explosion at Constitución substation cuts power in Libertad parish, Ciudad Ojeda, Venezuela

What happened

An explosion was reported on the evening of Monday 2 November at the Constitución substation in the Lagunillas municipality of Zulia state, Venezuela. According to reports, the incident happened shortly after 7.30pm and left much of Libertad parish without electricity, while other distribution circuits on the Costa Oriental del Lago were also reported affected. Residents said the failure was not limited to Libertad parish, but no overall tally of affected sectors or users was available at the time of publication.

The causes of the explosion and the extent of damage to the installation's equipment are not yet known. The event followed a separate explosion on 6 September at the Federación substation, opposite the Constitución neighbourhood of Ciudad Ojeda, which the authorities linked to a fault on the low-voltage breaker of transformer TX-3. The source does not link that finding to this event.

Contributing factors

Not yet known. The source states that the causes of this explosion are unknown.

Lessons learned

1. Where a substation explosion follows a recent failure at another substation in the same locality, operators may review comparable transformers and breakers across the network, not only at the site that failed.
2. Where a fault forces load transfer to other circuits, operators should track the wider outage footprint and publish an estimate promptly so communities and crews have accurate information.
3. After a breaker failure on a large transformer, comparable low-voltage breakers can warrant targeted inspection and protection testing.

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

Source

lapatilla.com