Recent Outage is a Reminder to be Prepared

Empire Electric Association’s members served by the East Cortez substation experienced an outage on Monday September 9 that lasted a little over an hour and impacted over 2,500 meters. The outage was caused by a squirrel that climbed on a type of protective device called a recloser and contacted high voltage connections. The resulting arc flash released enough energy to destroy the insulating bushings on the recloser and cause the nearest upstream protective device to operate and shut power off to the substation.

EEA utilizes many protective measures to keep people and animals out of substations because of the dangerous high voltage present and the density of equipment that can impact many members if something is damaged. Despite the barriers in place the squirrel managed to enter the substation and cause an outage. Please remember that you should never enter a substation. If you see something at an EEA substation that concerns you, please call us. All EEA substations have warning signs that show the name of the substation and our emergency phone number: (970) 565-4444.

The outage is also a reminder that EEA cannot guarantee uninterrupted power supply. Our grid is exposed to many  hazards, and it is inevitable that we will have outages. We recommend you have a basic outage kit that includes a flashlight with extra batteries, a radio with extra batteries, water, non-perishable food, first aid supplies, and medications or other health related items you or a family member may need like bottled oxygen.

Until recently we have experienced a warm dry summer. These conditions increase the risk of a wildland fire being accidentally started by electric distribution equipment owned by EEA. In high fire danger conditions EEA will change settings on our protective devices to minimize the risk of starting a fire when a fault occurs. This also may increase outage durations because crews are required to respond to every fault that triggers a protective device to operate.

A review of EEA outage data shows that from January through August 2024 the average EEA member has experienced 1 hour and 49 minutes of total outage time. This equates to a reliability percentage of 99.86%. That is less than our 2023 reliability percentage of 99.98%. Part of the lower reliability is due to the planned outages at Cortez Substation in April and May for routine maintenance that impacted approximately 3,800 meters for a total of four hours. Removing the maintenance outage from the calculation raises our reliability to 99.95%.

We know that having reliable power is important to our members. Our efforts are focused on safely building and maintaining a grid that can provide reliable power, and to be prepared to quickly restore power when outages do occur. We appreciate your support as we strive to meet your electrical energy needs.