Failure at substation causes Niles area power outage
Published 10:58 am Friday, January 31, 2025
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NILES — Utility crews were able to restore power to thousands of customers in the greater Niles area Thursday night and Friday morning following an outage that impacted all of the Niles Electric Utility’s service area.
The NEL provides energy to the City of Niles and many surrounding jurisdictions. According to a news release from the City of Niles, the utility experienced an unusual outage of about one hour and forty-five minutes. While the exact cause and chain of events is still being analyzed, officials said there was a failure at a privately-owned substation which is supplied energy from an AEP substation. The failure caused AEP to isolate their substation, which caused the City’s main substation that also receives energy from AEP to trip. The City has a back up substation for such events but it also tripped due to the system impact from this event.
Substations trip off line to protect the entire system much the same as a breaker in a residence trips to protect the home. Once AEP was able to isolate the damaged substation Niles electric crews were able to reenergize the City’s systems. While very inconvenient, the system performed as designed to protect the larger system from damage which could result in extended outages for customers.
The Niles Fire Department and supporting staff were able to control a small fire at the privately-owned substation. The Niles Police Department called in additional staff to monitor roadway conditions and patrol neighborhoods while the outage was ongoing.