It was a perfect storm, so to speak, that caused Tuesday’s power outages in the City of Bradford and Bradford Township.
Penelec spokesman Todd Meyers explained that high heat and humidity, and a failed transformer with a replacement essentially on back-order caused flickering lights, intermittent power outages in places — and longer outages in others.
“I’ve confirmed that this is a weather-related outage — high heat and humidity with lots of demand for electricity to power air conditioners,” Meyers said. “Normally, this would not be a problem, but because of the transformer failure a week ago Sunday at the Bradford West Substation near Pitt-Bradford, Penelec’s local electric system is not operating in its normal configuration.”
Crews for the utility company are working to address the problem as quickly as they can.
“We are in the process of hooking up a mobile substation at Bradford West to handle the duty of the failed transformer until a new one can be procured and installed,” Meyers said. However, it takes some time for the equipment to arrive after an order is placed.
“Transformers of this size can have long lead times due to ongoing manufacturing and supply chain issues throughout the industry,” he said.
Meyers explained what happened Tuesday that caused the failure.
“(Tuesday) around 2 p.m., we had some reports of lights flickering, prompting our crews to proactively transfer some of the electric load from Bradford West to our Mill Street substation to try to prevent a power interruption,” he said. “That load shift caused the circuit breaker to trip open at the Mill Street substation, interrupting electric service to about 1,200 customers in Bradford City and 400 in Bradford Township at around 2:23 p.m.”
The flickering lights were due to heat-related load caused by the extra demand of air conditioners, Meyers said. “Normally, that would not happen, but because our system is operating out of its normal configuration, other equipment that needs to handle extra duty because of the failed transformer at Bradford West can be prone to overheating with the additional electricity passing through it.”
Tuesday afternoon, Meyers said Penelec crews were working to shift some of the energy load to two nearby substations.
“We know it is hot and we are working to get the lights back on as quickly as possible for our customers. Installation of the mobile substation at Bradford West is expected to be completed over the next several days which should help going forward,” he added.
Does that mean the next few days could have more of the same?
“The heat looks to break Thursday, but (Wednesday) the high could reach 90. We’re working to complete the installation of the portable substation at Bradford West substation by (Wednesday) if possible to prevent a recurrence of another heat-related power disruption,” Meyers said.
The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford was impacted by the outage. A spokesperson said the campus was without electricity for about an hour. Customers off Interstate Parkway — some who didn’t have power for more than 12 hours after the transformer blew on Aug. 27 — again did not have power for several hours Tuesday.
Traffic signals along West Washington Street were also out for several hours in the afternoon. Bradford City Police were directing traffic.
