Union City, Tenn.–Union City Energy Authority customers experienced an outage Wednesday night due to a lighting strike in a substation. Union City lost about 3,500 customers for approximately 35 minutes.
Energy Authority CEO Jerry Baileysaid a lightning arrestor on the 161,000 volt system failed due to a lightning strike and opened all the 161,000 volt breakers in the Reelfoot Substation.
“This not only affected our customers but also had many of Gibson Electric’s Customers out as well. Most of the breakers belonged to TVA and caused widespread outages and instability of the power grid in the area”, Bailey said.
Bailey also said they were able to back feed most of the UCEA system until the damaged arrestor could be disconnected and the system restored. He added the arrestor did exactly what it was supposed to do by absorbing the energy from the strike to prevent damaging other expensive and critical equipment.
The arrestor will be replaced when a replacement can be obtained. A customer outage will not be required to replace the arrestor.