AUSTIN, Texas — Austin Energy is asking customers in southwest Austin to conserve energy until 8 p.m. Friday to prevent a repeat of the area’s power outage Thursday night.
As temperatures in the Oak Hill area of southwest Austin soared to nearly 100 degrees, Austin Energy CEO Bob Kahn asked customers to conserve energy as about 6,400 people lost power and air conditioning Thursday. A problem Austin Energy is still diagnosing has not been resolved. What we do know, however, is that a transformer at a substation went offline. “With the hot temperatures, the facility could become overloaded, which could lead to more outages,” he told reporters.
“We don’t know what the problem is that is causing the outage at the southwest Austin substation. We believe something may have caused the failure, but we won’t know until we do more testing,” said Lisa Martin, chief operating officer of Austin Energy.
If Austin Energy is unable to restore the transformer to service, a temporary transformer will be provided, but installation will take 24 hours.
Austin Energy held a press conference at City Hall this morning to call for conservation measures and explain the two outages this week, including the East Austin blackout on Wednesday that left about 7,000 customers without power. Austin Energy says the outage was caused by heat and demand overloading the infrastructure — and told CBS Austin the outage has been permanently fixed.
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“As you know, there have been a number of power outages in 2021 between Austin Energy, ERCOT and Oncor. What do you say to people who say we’re fed up?” I asked Martin. “Absolutely, we understand your frustration. We live in Austin too. We experience the outages too,” she replied.
All customers in southwest Austin who were without power on Thursday have now had power restored after the utility rerouted power around the faulty transformer. But Austin Energy CEO Bob Kahn told reporters that high demand could overwhelm the temporary solution, so the utility is urging people to take conservation measures, such as turning the thermostat up a few degrees and not using large appliances like the furnace.
“We are working around the clock to ensure that affected customers have a permanent solution,” Kahn said.
Since Austin experienced several power outages this week due to extreme heat, I reached out to the Public Utility Commission and was told they have been in touch with Austin Energy for more information on the issues.
