Wednesday morning, October 19, 2022, KPUD experienced a substation outage in the Alderdale area. Customer Service representatives began receiving phone calls around 9:00 a.m. A fire inside the substation resulted from damage to equipment and Alderdale Road was temporarily closed down as a safety precaution. KPUD resources were pulled from other jobs and deployed to this location to de-energize the substation, assess the damage and determine how to restore power as quickly as possible.
The crews worked through the night and restored power back to customers around 2:30 a.m. Thursday, October 20, 2022. Due to the significant damage to the substation, our field personnel constructed temporary structures that will stay in place until permanent repairs can be made.
We would like to recognize our staff for their quick level headed response to this situation with their first priority being to secure safety for staff, bystanders and property. We would also like to recognize Bonneville Power Administration staff and Benton PUD staff being available for us in the event we needed assistance to secure the site.
On Friday, October 21, 2022 we also had a failure with a connector on the transmission line in this area. Our crews responded to the call, located the issue and completed the necessary repairs. Power was restored at 10:30 a.m.
The cause of the substation outage is still under investigation.