Yukon Energy has determined the cause of the April 22 wide-spread power outage in Whitehorse and the Southern Lakes.
The outage occurred after “crews working on system upgrades in our Riverside substation inadvertently caused two breakers in the substation to open,” said Guy Morgan, director of operations for the crown corporation. “This resulted in three of our Whitehorse hydro units and our LNG facility to trip, causing the loss of power supply and subsequent outage.”
An additional eight staff were called in to deal with the outage. Yukon Energy closed the breakers at the Riverside substation in Riverdale.
Hydro units were restarted while diesel generation supplemented that supply as neighbourhoods and communities were brought back online. LNG units were also brought back online later that day.
Power was restored to all areas within three hours. A total of 12,124 customers were impacted.
Contact Stephanie Waddell at stephanie.waddell@yukon-news.com