Power restored in Yellowknife after nearly 4-hour outage

Power was restored to Yellowknife and surrounding communities about four hours after the city was plunged into darkness on Thursday because of a “wildlife interference” at a substation.

In an update on social media just before 7 p.m., the Northwest Territories Power Corporation had warned it didn’t know how long it would take to restore power. The outage began around 5:30 p.m., also affecting Ndilǫ and Dettah.

The utility said an investigation had found the piece of equipment that had broken down and it was removed.

“Power restoration has begun and we are restoring power using a combination of hydro and diesel generation,” it said in a social media post at 9:21 p.m.

Posting regular updates, it said just after 8:15 p.m. that it identified the faulty area of the substation that caused the outage.

The company said "wildlife interference in the substation" was believed to be responsible for the outage. Crews had been at the Jackfish power station on the edge of the city investigating the outage.

Stephen Van Dine, city manager, said Yellowknife had activated its cold weather protocol during the outage.

He asked residents to take precautions, including turning on faucets and running water to prevent pipes from freezing.

“We don’t want anybody gushing their pipes full blast,” he said. “Just a low tickle to keep circulation going to avoid any freeze up.” 

He had also asked residents to unplug appliances so they wouldn’t "fry" when power was restored. 

When asked about warming centres, the city manager said the outage had not reached a duration where those needed to be opened. 

The temperature in Yellowknife was about –25 C on Thursday evening.

Yellowknife Traffic and Parking Enforcement had said officers were directing vehicles where traffic lights were not working.