Austin Energy has a permanent fix in place at a Southwest Austin substation after equipment failure required re-routing power to restore service for roughly 6,400 customers. Energy conservation efforts were instrumental in keeping the power flowing, allowing crews to focus on returning the substation to normal operation.

Timeline of events

At 8:20 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 22, a transformer at a Southwest Austin substation went offline, and approximately 6,400 customers lost power. Crews immediately responded and worked through the night to simultaneously investigate the cause of the outage and to re-route power to other circuits, restoring all customers within three hours.

The equipment failure was in a component of the transformer and not related to heat or energy demand. Staff performed tests in the field, as well as laboratory testing on equipment, to help identify potential faults and prevent unplanned outages. Austin Energy simultaneously explored multiple backup solutions if repairs to the transformer were not possible. Once tests were completed, it was safe to make permanent repairs to the transformer.

At 10 a.m. Friday, Aug. 23, Austin Energy asked customers near the substation to conserve energy while the utility continued its repair work. But thanks to the conservation efforts of those customers and slightly cooler temperatures Friday, the temporary re-routing of power held up as technicians made permanent repairs to the transformer and brought it back online.