LVE
Recovers From Regional Power Outage
(August 11, 2005)
Due to a buss
differential failure in a main Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)
substation in Goshen, Idaho, Lower Valley Energy experienced a
system-wide power outage yesterday.
The outage
occurred just after 4:00 pm on Wednesday afternoon and LVE’s entire
system went immediately down. The outage also affected Fall River Rural
Electric, which serves Victor and Driggs, Idaho. In essence, the entire
area from West Yellowstone to Afton and much of Eastern Idaho was
affected by the power failure.
Instead of
waiting for grid power to come back online, LVE coordinated with
Palisades Dam operators to bring generation on to critical loads. Power
was temporarily restored before 5 pm in some areas and by 8:30 pm
temporary grid power was restored to the entire system. BPA engineers at
Goshen secured the permanent path to Goshen at 11 pm last night. Wilson,
Swan Valley, Teton Village, Kelly and Moran were the last areas to come
online as the furthest areas from the reroute through Palisades. A few
small, sporadic outages occurred due to blown fuses. Linemen crews were
positioned at every substation until at least 10 pm in case of failures.
A separate underground outage was restored by midnight.
As of 11 am,
Thursday morning, the exact cause of the outage remains unknown. BPA is
currently testing equipment and might now know the specific cause for
2-3 weeks.
LVE has been in
the planning process for 2 years to develop a new transmission path from
Soda Springs, tapping in to LVE’s southern transmission system. Had this
line been in place the regional outage stemming from Goshen would not
have affected LVE members.
While outages like these are unfortunate
and few, LVE’s goal is to keep your power on at all times. LVE
apologizes for any inconveniences caused and is working hard to prevent
this in the future. LVE also appreciates members’ patience and
cooperation during outages.
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