OPD5 system-wide outage shortened by new infrastructure

A newly installed component failed at Tortoise Substation in Moapa on Tuesday, Oct. 29
causing a system-wide outage for all OPD5 customers in Moapa Valley and Virgin Valley. The
outage began at 7:30 am and all customers were without power for 1 hour and 26 minutes.
Power was restored at 9:01 am.
A recently constructed second transmission line into Tortoise, which was energized earlier this
month, significantly reduced the time that the power was out in the communities. The new line,
and its associated substation infrastructure, enabled OPD5 crews to isolate the failed equipment
and switch to another configuration that would restore power more quickly.
“That allowed our crews to not only mitigate the problem, but it also prevented a much longer
outage; similar to the one we had years ago,” said OPD5 General Manager Mendis Cooper.
At the time of the incident, a contract line crew was working in a different portion of the
substation. The crew reported watching as the failing equipment burst into flames and exploded.
The sound from the explosion was felt by residents in neighborhoods throughout the Moapa
community.
“We are just thankful that everyone was safe,” Cooper said. “And we appreciate the response
from the contract line crew which helped us find and remedy this situation.”
OPD5 crews responded quickly to the substation to address the problem.
“I am proud of our staff,” said Cooper. “They had the training to isolate and contain this issue
safely. And we had the infrastructure in place to switch and re-energize quickly. Finally, we had
amazing support from our OPD5 customer service staff that worked hard that morning to keep
everyone informed.”
The exact reason that the equipment failed is still under investigation. Representatives from the
equipment manufacturer will be on site next week to perform a detailed analysis on the
equipment in order to determine the cause of the failure.