Castlebar power station fault causes brief black-out

Castlebar power station fault causes major blackout


Anton McNulty

A FAULT at an ESB power station in Castlebar caused a power outage across the county yesterday (Monday) evening.
ESB Networks was forced to cut power across the Mayo and in parts of Sligo at 5pm after a failure in the 110KV station in Castlebar earlier in the day, which required immediate repair.
In order to rectify the problem, ESB Networks had to cut power from the substations that feed off the Castlebar station, causing the blackouts. Once a solution to the problem in Castlebar was found, technicians had to ‘build back up’ to the sub stations in order to restore the power.
A number of businesses were informed of the impending power cut in order to allow them to make alternative arrangements. ESB Networks informed its customers on its Twitter account at approximately 4pm that ‘Due to plant failure the following areas may suffer a short-term loss of power’. The areas listed included Sligo, Ballina, Castlebar and Achill. Westport and Newport were among the other areas that were affected.
This tweet was followed by another which stated that the ‘short-term loss of power’ would occur around 5pm.
The power outage began at 5.15pm. Most affected areas saw power return at approximately 5.40pm. However, a number of customers in the Ballina, Newport and Achill regions were left without electricity for another hour.
A spokesperson for ESB told The Mayo News that while faults can happen it is unusual that the company would have to cut power to other substations to solve the problem. The spokesperson added that she was unable to explain the underlying cause of the fault. ‘Faults occur from time to time’, she said.