◊ This is part of the ‘history’ series of articles ◊
The capital city of Canada, Ottawa Ontario, is a beautiful city, known for its tulip festival and monumental structures, however it is no stranger to disasters. Here are a couple electrical incidents worthy of mention in order of significance. The City of Ottawa web site lists some others.
Tornado at Merivale Transformer Station in Ottawa, 2018
On Sept. 21, 2018 a tornado that touched down in the Ottawa-Gatineau region ripped through the Merivale Transformer Station in Ottawa leaving almost 180,000 homes without power. Merivale is one of two major supply points for the Ottawa area as part of the 115kV and 230kV transmission networks. An estimated 90 hydro poles were down and some transmission towers were folded in half. The outage lasted for approximately 52 hours for some customers, however the full repairs took 12 weeks at a cost of $10 million.
Root cause
Extreme weather, tornado.
The city of Ottawa blackout 1986
On August 7, 1986 downtown Ottawa was impacted by a fire in the Slater Transformer Station. Little public information is available, however Centretown was blacked out. Approximately half the interrupted customers were restored from adjacent stations within four hours. Full service was restored in 56 hours. I would guess the cost would have been over $1 million however there is no public record of damage cost.
Root cause
Equipment failure, fire.
Ottawa Mar 07, 2020
A Hydro Ottawa Richmond Road substation had equipment failure and fire at 2:50 a.m. on March 7, 2020. The incident knocked out power to nearly 12,000 customers in the Carling, Richmond, Pinecrest, Ahearn and Oakley areas for approximately 20 hours.
Root cause
Equipment failure, fire
Ottawa Friday March 13, 2009
A Hydro Ottawa substation on Shefford Road in Ottawa’s east end had a fire left about 5,500 customers without power in Beacon Hill. The failure happened during scheduled work and reportedly resulted in a voltage surge which damaged customer equipment.
Root cause
Human factor, equipment failure, fire
A large urban area has extensive electrical infrastructure and will have it’s share of outages. If you live in one, keep working flashlights handy and have a plan.
Derek
