Documents Shed Light On SMUD’s Plans For Improvements To Now-Damaged Substation

2 years ago 328

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – More than 500 SMUD customers were inactive without powerfulness 2 days aft a occurrence astatine a downtown substation.

New documents amusement the substation that caught occurrence needed improvements, and SMUD was readying connected alteration earlier the explosion.

SMUD says repair enactment continued astir the timepiece to get powerfulness backmost successful days alternatively of weeks. They’re planning connected Friday morning for afloat powerfulness restoration.

Work continued Thursday evening to reconstruct powerfulness to the substation that exploded Tuesday, creating a fume unreality supra downtown Sacramento.

The occurrence damaged instrumentality and created days of acheronian for businesses and restaurants successful a six-block radius astir the substation.

“The fume conscionable poured out,” 1 neighbour said. “There were occurrence unit everywhere.”

A nationalist 260-page task appraisal from SMUD says the substation was “near the extremity of utile life” and “requires replacement, upgrades and further space.”

The study is from 2015.

The papers besides shows, successful the aforesaid year, SMUD planned to marque repairs to the site, including installing caller instrumentality connected a batch connected the northbound broadside of the substation and to instrumentality parts of the older installation offline.

They besides looked into a caller gathering which would support electrical equipment.

In 2017, the City of Sacramento gave support for the enlargement and repair, but metropolis leaders told CBS13 that is arsenic acold arsenic the metropolis was progressive successful the project.

In 2020, different alteration was proposed: SMUD planned to “decommission” the substation altogether and region the instrumentality from the historical building.

That task was acceptable to commencement adjacent year.

CBS13 asked leaders with SMUD astir the report. They corroborate they were looking for a caller larger substation to accommodate the increasing grid, but besides accidental the existent substation was ne'er a information hazard.

In a statement, leaders accidental “useful beingness is fluid and tin alteration greatly babelike upon the attraction and attraction of the site. It does not mean the strategy was unsafe.”

It’s inactive not wide what started the fire.

SMUD besides says inspectors measure instrumentality each 2 months. Station A was past inspected successful October, and different inspection was acceptable to hap aboriginal connected this month.

Station A is planned to beryllium transferred to a caller substation, substation “G” which is conscionable crossed from the installation successful October of 2022.

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They expect the afloat determination by May 2023. The occurrence impacted outdoor, outer instrumentality lone and not the historical building, which is mostly empty.