Richmond interim water director attributes 36-hour outage to switchgear and backup power failures

Scott Morris, interim director of the City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities, told the Virginia Water Commission that a combination of an electrical switchgear failure and undersized backup power systems caused a nearly 36-hour outage at the city27s water treatment plant.

Morris said the plant was operating in “winter mode,” which routes distribution through only one switchgear, and that a failure in switchgear 6 prevented the automatic transfer of power between main feeds. "The power did not automatically transfer from main feed 1 to main feed 2, and that was due to equipment failure in SG 6," Morris said. He said an undersized uninterruptible power supply (UPS) could not fully close filter effluent valves when the power blip occurred; valves remained open, clear-well water…