Latest Austin power outages undercuts confidence in Austin Energy

Austin Energy substation fire

A fire at an Austin Energy substation knocked out power to several thousand people in Northeast Austin on Monday.

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin Energy crews spent most of Monday morning repairing a substation in East Austin.

A fire at the substation on Middle Fiskville Rd. ignited a little before 4 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 9. It cut power to almost 7,000 residents of the Windsor Hills neighborhood, which is located in Northeast Austin.

Among those in the dark was Sandi Deming. She thought someone was trying to break into her house.

"It was very frightening. It was in the middle of the night, actually, early morning. And I was scared to death because everything was black. And I tried to call 311, and it rang and rang and rang and no one ever answered," said Deming.

The neighborhood has an older demographic, with some residents having health problems like Rusty Strong’s wife.

Austin Energy ramps up tree trimming efforts

The effort to clear tree limbs away from power lines is ramping up. The effort comes after a city audit last year revealed Austin Energy's goal to trim trees on a seven year cycle was behind schedule.

"When she gets up at night with her stroke and if there's light out, she could, she could easily have a fall and, and, and that's that. My greatest fear is that she will take a fall," said Strong.

Initially, Strong said he thought he blew a breaker. He then drove around the neighborhood to see how many others were out of power.

"By the time I got back, as I was walking in, the power came back and on," said Strong.

Officials with Austin Energy told FOX 7 the fire at the substation was caused by equipment failure in a transformer. This, and recent outages, have undercut Deming’s confidence in her utility provider.

"What are you going to do to fix this," asked Deming.

Austin Energy spokesperson Matt Mitchell responded to Deming’s question.

"Sure. An understandable question. Anytime there's an outage, that's one outage too many," said Mitchell.

Austin Energy prepares for severe summer heat

As we near triple-digit temperatures, Austin Energy's power generation and transmission facilities are ready for the heat. The utility announced it has completed its summer weatherization.

The transformer that failed on Monday morning went through preventative maintenance in August and July.

"And that indicates, to us, and it should indicate to most, that you can't always forecast an equipment failure very easily. Sometimes, when something breaks, it doesn't give you a warning," said Mitchell.

The units are infrared-checked every 8–12 weeks, according to information provided to FOX 7. The transformers are also on a four-year inspection cycle.

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Recent Austin outages include a fail-safe sensor tripping on August 22 due to high heat. Storms knocked down power lines on April 28. Last year there were three notable big outages: One caused by heat; a snake caused a short; and an ice storm.

"So, it's not that these are happening necessarily more often, but we are communicating more about it, and therefore, it is getting more into the public eye as to what these challenges are and why these outages do occur, which as we know, is for any number of reasons, this one was equipment failure, but tomorrow it could be a car accident," said Mitchell.

In terms of outages and duration of outages, when compared to other utilities, in the ERCOT grid, Austin Energy is at about half the state average.

The largest outages on record in Austin have been tree-related, limbs falling from ice storms or windstorms. AE has recently ramped up its Vegetation Removal program and Mitchell indicated progress is being made.

"We are as ready as we can be. We never know exactly what Mother Nature is going to throw at us. And in 2023, we didn't know that Mother Nature was going to put three quarters of an inch of ice on 30 million trees either. That was not what was forecast. And yet Mother Nature has other ideas. What I can say is that our tree trimming and our vegetation management programs are on schedule, are on track, have highlighted and focused on those circuits that are the most problematic, and are the lowest performing that are most prone to outages and or wildfires. So, we feel really good about the process. We feel really good about the progress that we're making. The crews that are doing that work again every single day to make sure that we're ready, whether it is a winter storm or just high winds that come, you know, as we change seasons," said Mitchell.