Last Updated on November 4, 2022, 1:46 PM | Published: November 4, 2022
OKLAHOMA CITY (SW metro, Mustang) — Even though there were no storms or reports of lightning, 22,000 OG&E customers were without power for nearly an hour in the southwest corner of Oklahoma City and Mustang Tuesday night.
The explanation? “There was an equipment failure, and our crews responded quickly and identified the issue and got power restored to our customers,” Aaron Cooper with OG&E told Free Press.
Cooper identified the substation on S. Sara Road near S.W. 59th Street as the location of the problem.
We went to that substation Thursday and saw several workers and construction equipment hard at work on the site installing equipment.
It seemed to be a part of heavy work going on in whole square miles in all directions around the substation, including not just the electrical grid but roads and other infrastructure in preparation for development in areas that are currently open farmland.
And, OG&E’s Grid Enhancement map confirms that there is a considerable amount line improvements being made in that part of the system.
Did the equipment failure have anything to do with the upgrades to the system?
“No, the equipment failure wasn’t related to any work in the area,” Cooper told us.
Stranded?
Whatever the failure was, the rest of the system did not reroute power once the substation was down, leaving customers in the area to wait until the equipment failure had been repaired.
Decades ago, OG&E started evolving a system where the electrical grid could quickly reroute electricity around damaged sections of the city in rapid response to events like rampaging tornados, a regular aspect of OKC’s history and life.
According to our unofficial sources, the response system was once manually coordinated by a team of people in a central control room but over the years automation was developed that would make the response to damage quicker at least by design.
And so, questions remain about why that part of the electrical system was not able to recover from the failure of equipment at one substation, leaving so many without power.
Free Press will continue to report as we gain meaningful information.
Founder, publisher, and editor of Oklahoma City Free Press. Brett continues to contribute reports and photography to this site as he runs the business.
