Hydro One releases details of May 27 power disturbance

Hydro One released the results of its initial investigation into a power disturbance that occurred on May 27th. The investigation revealed that the momentary power blip that some customers experienced was caused by operator error at the Ontario Grid Control Centre in Barrie, during the performance of regular duties.

On May 27th, at approximately 4:15 p.m., Hydro One crews were returning 500,000 volt equipment into service after scheduled maintenance at the Milton Switching Station located in the western Greater Toronto Area. During the operation, the equipment was inadvertently energized into a three-phase ground. Hydro One's equipment protection worked as designed and immediately operated to isolate the fault.

"This was an unfortunate incident of operator error," said Peter Gregg, Vice President of Corporate Communications. "Our equipment responded as it is designed to and it isolated the fault. No one was hurt and most of our customers wouldn't have noticed any impact at all. These errors are incredibly rare, we have come close to eliminating them but unfortunately this one wasn't prevented."

The Society of Energy Professionals, whose members have been reassigned from supervisory positions at the Ontario Grid Control Centre during labour disruptions, has stated that if they were on the job during this recent incident they would have prevented the error. Hydro One vehemently denies their claims.

"Their claims are absolutely false and are but another example of their irresponsible behaviour during the current labour dispute, this is not the first time they have employed scare tactics," added Gregg. "The Society knows full well that had they been on the job they would not have been able to prevent this blip from happening, they simply would not have been involved. This is routine maintenance work performed by non-Society staff with absolutely no involvement by Society members.

"We perform approximately 60,000 similar switching operations in a typical year and so far we have had two of these incidents," Gregg added. "During the last incident Society supervisors were still on the job - they didn't prevent that one from happening. It's time the Society started being honest with Ontarians."

The Society has been in a legal strike/lockout position since April 27th, 2005. They represent approximately 1,000 Hydro One employees who are accountants, engineers, IT staff and project managers - they are not system operators. The highest paid Society earner made $182,000 in 2004. Over 300 Society employees earned more than $100,000 last year.