News
Power safely restored after substation fire
14 February 2019
Power has been safely restored to all customers impacted by a major outage across Sydney’s Upper North Shore after a fire at the Hornsby zone substation.
Ausgrid Chief Operating Officer Trevor Armstrong has apologised to customers.
Our teams worked through the night and into today to progressively restore power safely and we’d like to sincerely apologise to our customers for the inconvenience this has caused. The repairs have taken longer than expected because the fire damage was worse than we first anticipated and had damaged high voltage cables.
Trevor Armstrong, Ausgrid Chief Operating Officer
"These kind of repairs are complex and we needed to make sure the network was safe before we were able to restore power to customers.
“We realise that the wait has been frustrating for customers and again we’d like to thank them for their patience and understanding”, Mr Armstrong said.
Power was interrupted to about 26,000 customers in parts of Hornsby, Waitara, Asquith, Hornsby Heights, Wahroonga, Galston, Thornleigh, Mount Colah and Normanhurst shortly before midday yesterday.
Crews worked to progressively restore power overnight, more than 20,000 had been restored by 6am and the last customers were reconnected shortly after 11am today.
The fire was caused by a suspected cable joint failure in the basement of the substation which severely damaged the major feeder and communications cables which serve the area.
Ausgrid’s investigation into the fire is continuing.