Ohio: Power on, off as transformer battles heat

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

Power on, off as transformer battles heat

06/16/01

By ANGELA D. CHATMAN One of the first hot days of the year proved too much for an electrical transformer serving Garfield Heights, Maple Heights and Valley View.

A transformer at a substation in Valley View failed at 8:45 p.m. Thursday, cutting off power to 10,000 Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. customers in those communities and a small pocket of Bedford.

CEI restored power to about 2,000 of the customers shortly after 10 p.m., but 8,000 others remained without power until 10:45 a.m. yesterday. By then, workers had restored power to all but 100 customers, said a spokesman for FirstEnergy, the parent company of CEI.

The company restored power to the last 100 customers around 3 p.m. But electricity to the three communities failed again around 4:20 p.m. As of 9:30 p.m., power was still out for 5,000 to 6,000 customers.

The transformer overloaded, overheated and failed because of heavy demand from air conditioners late Thursday, said Michael Smith, area manager for Cleveland and Cuyahoga County.

Crews had to replace the transformer. Normally, they would have transferred the load to the substation's other transformer. They could not because the other transformer was down for maintenance.

The company brought in a mobile transformer to take over the load. It broke down, too. Yesterday evening, Smith said crews had been working since Thursday night to finish restoring power.

A company spokesman said the company has the capacity to handle the increased loads and will be able to do so this summer.

"We added close to 1,000 extra megawatts to our system in the last couple of years. That's enough to handle about 700,000 additional homes," said spokesman Joe Mosbrook.

He said overall capacity is 13,000 megawatts. A megawatt provides enough power for about 700 homes.

The power failure took its toll on businesses in the affected area.

The Garfield Sunoco gasoline station at Turney and Rockside roads could not sell gasoline; the pumps would not operate, and clerks could not use electronic cash registers.

The staff conducted some transactions using exact change and sold items to people willing to pay a flat fee. For instance, a $2.80 pack of cigarettes might sell for $3.

The Marc's and Giant Eagle grocery stores on Rockside Rd. in Garfield Heights had to throw out frozen and perishable foods such as meat, chicken and frozen vegetables, though neither reported the cost of those items.

E-mail: achatman@plaind.com Phone: 216-999-4115

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/cuyahoga/9926838111727556.xml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 16, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ