Oshawa, ON…On November 14, 2016 the City of Oshawa experienced a power outage that affected approximately 18,000 customers in the north east quadrant of the City. The outage started at approximately 6:00 p.m. and Oshawa Power crews worked tirelessly throughout the evening to safely restore power to all customers by 11:15 p.m.
“The Oshawa Power crews pulled together and did not stop working until power was safely restored to every customer affected by the outage”, said Ivano Labricciosa, President and CEO of Oshawa Power. “It is tremendous efforts like this one that show our commitment to the residents of Oshawa.”
The root cause of the outage was a 44,000 volt overhead conductor splice failure that caused a live power line to come down at the corners of Mary Street and Taunton Road. In the process of making the site safe and restoring power, we experienced a second event as a 44,000 volt switch failed on an adjacent circuit at the main Wilson Substation at Rossland Road extending the duration of the outage.
Oshawa Power has implemented new customer facing technology solutions such as an on-line website customer portal, live outage reporting and tracking map and a twitter social media account that provide timely 24 hour customer information. During the outage, there was a significant spike in Oshawa customers seeking real-time updates on the status and restoration time for outages with over 50,000 impressions from these various communication channels.
About Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation
Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation (Oshawa Power) is the holding company for a diversified group of four subsidiaries involved in energy distribution, telecom ventures, clean power generation and solar energy generation. Through its subsidiaries OPUC provides: safe, reliable and efficient electricity distribution services to over 57,000 customers; develops, constructs and operates clean and green energy generation assets in Ontario; and provides a reliable dark fibre optics communications network within Oshawa and the Region of Durham. OPUC is wholly owned by the Corporation of The City of Oshawa.
Media Contact:
Nadeige Carter
905-439-1917; ncarter@opuc.on.ca
www.oshawapower.ca
