HALIFAX — More than 44,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were plunged into darkness in the Halifax area on Friday night as the province grapples with an intense heat wave.
According to Nova Scotia Power, the massive blackout began at the Lakeside Substation at 8:01 p.m. due to a major equipment failure. Officials initially stated they expected power to be fully restored by 11:59 p.m.
Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency crews rushed to the scene after a fire broke out at the facility. Robert Hebb, the district chief of operations, told CTV News Atlantic that the fire originated in a high-voltage section of the plant.
“They have one section of the substation that runs at 138,000 volts. There’s a series of switches that control that area, and one of those switches let go, exploded and caught fire,” Hebb explained. He noted that the specific switch involved is roughly the size of a 10-gallon pail and is filled with oil.
The widespread outage covers a massive geographic footprint, stretching all the way from Bedford to East Dover and Ketch Harbour.
A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Power confirmed that the blackout was not a result of deliberate load shedding to cope with the heat wave. The utility also issued an apology for an earlier, automated system alert that incorrectly blamed salt contamination for the grid failure, clarifying that it was an administrative error.
