Hydro Ottawa Limited Major Event: March 7, 2020
Prior to Major Event
1. Did the distributor have any prior warning that the Major Event would occur?
No, there was no prior warning to this Major Event occuring.
2. If the distributor did have prior warning, did the distributor arrange to have extra employees on duty or on standby prior to the Major Event beginning?
Yes, Hydro Ottawa had a full complement of on-shift personnel, and a full on-call roster of field technicians and management personnel.
3. If the distributor did have prior warning, did the distributor issue any media announcements to the public warning of possible outages resulting from the pending Major Event?
No
4. Did the distributor train its staff on the response plans to prepare for this type of Major Event?
Yes
During The Major Event
1. Please identify the main contributing cause of the major event as per the table in section 2.1.4.2.5 of the electricity reporting and recording keeping requirements Other
The main contributing cause of the major event was Defective Equipment. An overhead transition on a pole (pothead) failed and caused a fault condition. A fire occurred at Lincoln Heights TD station as a result of the circuit breaker failing to fully interrupt the fault condition.
2. Was the IEEE Standard used to derive the threshold for the Major Event?
Yes, used IEEE Standard 1366
3. When did the Major Event Begin?
Date: 07-Mar-20
Time: (HH:MM AM) 2:23 AM
4. Did the distributor issue any estimated times of restoration (ETR) to the public during the Major Event?
Yes, ETR's for the outages were issued by our Outage Management System, Power Outage Line and by email Outage Alerts. Regular updates were provided throughout the day into the following day on our website and through social media posts.
5. How many customers were interrupted during the Major Event?
11,686 (3% of customers)
6. How many hours did it take to restore 90% of the customers who were interrupted?
26 hours to restore all customers supplied by Lincoln Heights TD station, the station fire had to be suppressed, the situation needed to be made safe, new circuit ties had to be completed, and equipment was re-tested prior to energization.
7. Were there any outages associated with loss of supply during the outage?
Yes. In order to allow the fire department to safely extinguish the fire and to be able to test all existing equipment prior to energization, it was agreed by Hydro Ottawa and Hydro One to offload the entire station. The station was offline for approximately 24 hours.
8. In responding to the Major Event, did the distributor utilize assistance through a third party mutual assistance agreement with other utilities?
No
9. Did the distributor run out of any needed equipment or materials during the Major Event?
Yes. During the fire suppression, the fire department encountered a shortage of CO2 fire extinguishers. More extinguishers were retrieved from a nearby substation, but Hydro Ottawa will work with the fire department to determine how much should be available at all times in the future.
After The Major Event
1. What steps, if any, are being taken to be prepared for or mitigate such major events in the future (i.e. staff training, process improvements, system upgrades)?
There will be continued focus on on-call and emergency response preparation.