Power has been fully restored after afternoon outages

This afternoon, Saskatoon Light & Power experienced two separate power outages that affected customers in various areas of the city. Both outages were promptly addressed, and power was restored quickly.

The first outage lasted six minutes and affected east-central neighbourhoods, including Holliston, Adelaide Churchill, Haultain, Greystone Heights, Varsity View, Brevoort Park, Eastview and Nutana Park. The second event, lasting 17 minutes, impacted approximately 35,000 customers across the majority of the west, north, and east regions of the SL&P franchise area.

The outages were caused by the failure of a device called a Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) at the Taylor Street Substation. The RTU is a computer that enables remote operation of the substation. When the RTU failed, it inadvertently caused a switch to open, leading to the outages. The failed unit has been disconnected to prevent further disruptions, and its replacement is being prioritized for the coming weeks.

Today’s outages were unrelated to last week’s power issues caused by a mechanical failure of a switch at a different substation. The two incidents appear to be an unfortunate coincidence.

Saskatoon Light & Power prides itself on maintaining one of Canada's best reliability scores among electricity providers. Although equipment failures can happen from frequent use and exposure to the environment, SL&P’s team is committed to quickly resolving these issues to minimize any impact on customers.

For more information on Saskatoon Light & Power, or to view the outage map, visit Saskatoon.ca/SL&P.