On Sunday morning another power outage affecting over 1000 customers was reported in the city of Yellowknife. The latest power outage comes at the heels of a set of power outages last week that affected thousands of customers in the city of Yellowknife, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Ndilǫ and Behchokǫ̀.
Last week Naka Power told True North FM the electrical outages on April 5 and 8 were caused by power distribution issues on Naka’s end.
Jay Massie, who is Naka’s vice president, told True North FM that the April 5 outage (which affected 9, 046 customers) was caused by a breaker that has since been replaced. Massie said the smaller outage that happened on April 8 (which affected 1, 849 customers) was caused by an electrical piece of equipment that has since been offloaded.
Naka told True North FM that Sunday’s outage affected about 1050 customers. Naka reported that the outage occurred mostly in the downtown core and in some residential areas with customers losing power for approximately one hour.
Vic Barr, who is the manager of Naka Power Utilities in Yellowknife told True North FM that the power outage was caused by a “sudden interference on the distribution system.”
“This unexpected disruption created a system imbalance, triggering protective measures,” said Barr.
Raven contact is suspected to have caused of the sudden interference on Naka’s power distribution system this time around.
“The outage was initiated on the distribution system and is suspected to be caused by a raven contact. Naka-YK’s on-call technician received a call from the NTPC control room, and they worked together to resolve the situation between the generation and distribution side of the electrical system,” said Barr.
Barr said that Naka and N.W.T. took proactive measures to address the power outage this weekend.
“Both utility companies worked closely and collaboratively throughout the incident to identify the root cause, stabilize the system, and restore power safely and efficiently,” said Barr.
The NWT Power Corp generates the power used by customers across the region that is distributed by Naka.
Doug Prendergast, who is the communications manager at NWT’s Power Corp. told True North last week that when an outage occurs the company’s operations staff investigates to find the “root cause.”
Prendergast also explained that an Outage Investigation Committee meets monthly to review past outages to review root causes and then consider options to prevent their recurrence.
True North FM reached out to N.W.T. Power Corp for more information about yesterday’s outage and will share those details when they are available.
Barr said that it’s important for the public to understand that the cause was rooted in Naka’s distribution system so that they can access the appropriate service-related updates.
“We’re committed to providing our customers with accurate and timely information during power outages, and part of that effort includes helping the public understand the difference between generation-related and distribution-related outages. Knowing where an outage originates can help customers follow the right utility on social media for the most relevant updates,” said Barr.
Barr said that Naka’s social media communications on April 13 were not as clear as the company would have liked and apologized for any “confusion” from their post.
“Unfortunately, our initial post did not fully capture the nature of the recent outage and wish to apologize for the unnecessary confusion. Issues with the power system are often complex and both utility providers play critical roles in the response and restoration process,” said Barr.
Barr assured that Naka understands how critical “clear communication” is to address these types of incidents.
“We recognize the importance of clear communication, especially during emergencies, and we’re committed to improving how we share information moving forward,” said Barr.
