Hydro One officials are blaming a major power outage last week on a “broken insulator,” although what caused that problem remains unclear.
At about 2:20pm on Feb. 29 over 10,000 people in the Guelph, Waterloo and Wellington County areas were without power for hours.
Hydro One spokesperson Nancy Shaddick said officials have traced the power outage to “a broken insulator on a transmission line servicing the region.”
Shaddick told the Advertiser 10,000 Hydro One customers were without power, in addition to users of Guelph Hydro and other distribution systems throughout northern Waterloo Region and Wellington County.
Some News sources have estimated the power outage may have affected close to 20,000 users in total.
“They started to restore power at about 5pm,” Shaddick said, adding the restoration was “staged” over several hours by various distributors.
She said Hydro One is unsure what exactly caused the insulator to break.
“It could have been the weather,” Shaddick said, though she added that is but one possible explanation.
On Feb. 29 high winds and a mixture of sleet and snow were observed throughout much of Wellington County.
