Hydro Ottawa Limited (Hydro Ottawa), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa Holding Inc., has set up a mobile substation to replace the Canotek and Shefford road transformers that were damaged in a major fire on March 13, 2009. The mobile substation will be on site for up to six weeks as work crews install a substation with full capacity to take over from the damaged one. The fire led to outage of power for 5,500 Hydro Ottawa customers in the Beacon Hill area.
Company’s crew was working in the transformer enclosure when a malfunction or accident occurred, fire officials said.
The fire occurred in the evening at the substation at the corner of Canotek and Shefford roads, just north of Montreal Road near Highway 174, in the Canotek Business Park.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation. No injuries were reported, but the flames and thick black smoke drew a crowd of neighborhood residents.
Hydro Ottawa customers in the affected area have been asked to reduce their power use as much as possible while the substation is being installed, Lance Jefferies, Hydro Ottawa’s director of construction and maintenance said.
“We want to send the message that this is temporary and that we don’t have all the capacity we normally have, but that it’s very stable and we don’t anticipate any issues whatsoever,” Jefferies said.
Jefferies further continued that it could take some time to repair the damaged electrical substation.