Substation operated by SPA the cause for Carthage power outage

Much of Carthage awoke to the inconvenience of being without power after a substation managed by the Southwest Power Administration (SPA) malfunctioned early Tuesday morning.

The substation at the south end of Carthage is a federal government substation operated by the SPA. It is the feed for all of the power for the City of Carthage. Carthage Water & Electric Plant has access to the substation, but cannot perform any form of maintenance.

“We have access to the facility, but we can’t work on the lines or do anything as it is a federal government facility,” CWEP General Manager Chuck Bryant told Newstalk KZRG. “But what happened this morning is there was a failure in a piece of equipment in the substation that caused that. And when that failed, it basically disconnected the entire substation, which is not just Carthage. There are others as well, and it shut off the feed out of the substation for everyone. Now, we’re the biggest user and the closest, so it’s obviously impactful to us, but it impacted others as well.”

More than 7,000 people were without power in Carthage as they woke up on Tuesday. The good news is the issue was identified by CWEP and upon arrival, the SPA fixed the issue relatively quickly.

“Our folks got on the scene right away as soon as that happened this morning,” Bryant added. “And then from the ground, we could see an issue that we wanted to have them take a look at. As the SPA crews came into the substation, we kind of pointed to the issue that we thought it could have been. They confirmed that and then isolated the switch that had a problem. Once it was isolated and off of that bus work, then they were able to then reestablish the load back into Carthage so that we had power again.

“What’s really crazy, this is the second issue in that substation in a matter of a week,” Bryant said. “So, I actually spoke to the Southwest Power Administration, the administrator of the system this morning. He’s shocked that happened. And we had a couple of serious issues within just a week’s time.”

Last Monday, there was another issue with the same power substation that left much of Carthage with a similar power outage. While it is certainly inconvenient, it does not appear that the issues were related. And the cause may just be wear and tear. Regardless, the issue has been remedied and a permanent fix is on the horizon.

“They do not appear at this point in time to be related to one another, which is very odd,” Bryant said about both incidents at the same substation. “But (the SPA) is continuing to assess it and they’ll be evaluating what the next steps are. And then next week or the following, they’ll make the permanent repairs to the bus work and change out some switch gear with newer equipment in hopes that that solves what the issue was.”