Columbia Water and Light says no issues at Harmony Branch substation

At least two power outages affected more than 1,400 residents in northwest Columbia during the month of October.

The first happened on the morning of Oct. 4 when a breaker blew at the Harmony Branch substation. Power was restored about 30 minutes later. The most recent outage happened on Oct. 30, and residents were without electricity for about an hour.

Connie Kacprowicz, Columbia Water and Light spokesperson, said that outage was caused by a lightning arrestor failure.

“What it’s meant to do is take lightning strikes and protect the electric equipment,” she explained. “Occasionally after they’ve been hit several times, they will go bad. So even though there wasn’t lightning on Sunday, it just picked that moment to go bad.”

Both outages affected residents living along Business Loop 70 from Providence to North Rebel Drive.

Kacprowicz said the outages in October were not due to an overworked substation like in other parts of the city.

“There’s been a lot of growth in Columbia over the years and even though Columbia is growing in all different directions, where we’re really seeing some overloading at our substations is more on the southern side of town.”

The Grindstone, Perche and Hinkson substations are all reaching over capacity of their desired electric loads, said Kaprowicz. In 2013, the City Council approved to run a transmission line from Grindstone Parkway and Highway 63 to a new “Mill Creek” substation built north of Rock Bridge High School, ending at the Perche Creek substation off Scott Blvd.

That plan was put on hold in January 2016 when City Council members asked to look at other transmission line route options.

Kaprowicz said there hasn’t been as much growth in the northwest part of Columbia to put a strain on the electric system. However, she said the southern substations are reaching a critical point.

“Our modeling suggests that by if 2020, if some things aren’t in place, that we could have problems. We are trying to work very hard and as fast as possible, but it does take time to make sure all of that engineering work is done.”