Power restored after brief outage in Niles

ABC 57

NILES, Mich. -- UPDATE: Niles City Administrator Richard Huff released the following statement regarding Thursday night's power outage:

"The Niles Electric Utility provides energy to the City of Niles and many surrounding jurisdictions. Last evening the utility experienced an unusual outage of about one hour and forty-five minutes affecting all of the utility’s service area. While the exact cause and chain of events is still being analyzed it appears there was a failure at a privately-owned substation which is supplied energy from an AEP substation. This failure caused AEP to isolate their substation. This action caused the City’s main substation which 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.

I want to thank the utility customers for their patience during this outage."

ORIGINAL STORY: The city of Niles says power is now restored for residents a brief outage tonight. In a text alert-- the city said no power was being delivered by AEP. Crews addressed the problem immediately.

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