Electricity transport network malfunction causes Bucharest power outage

The northern part of Bucharest and several areas in the capital’s districts 2 and 3 experienced a power outage on Wednesday, November 1. The outage was caused by a malfunction at the Fundeni 220/110/10kV power station, the electricity transport company Transelectrica said. Parts of the switch activation device of the station and related secondary circuits of the autotransformer did not work properly. As such, the Bucharest neighbourhoods and areas of Tei, Calea Moșilor, Dacia, Pipera and Dorobanți were left without power. The street lighting and traffic lights were also down in several parts of the city, and the Road Police had to intervene to cover for the temporary breakdown. The Iancului and Pipera metro stations also experienced power outages, and their platforms were left in the dark for several minutes. The malfunction occurred at 16:40. By 17:40 all affected consumers had the power restored, Transelectrica said. A malfunction at the same Fundeni station caused another power outage in areas of Bucharest and in Ilfov county on October 21. A high voltage equipment malfunctioned on that occasion. Romania produced in mid-September of this year 7,287 MW of energy at a national level, while consumption stood at 7,778 MW, according to Transelectrica data quoted by Capital. In the last year, failures in the national electricity grid have increased, and blackouts have affected several counties. Transelectrica failed to respect the investment programs that would have upgraded its network. In 2015, the company had to invest about EUR 115 million in the network. However, it invested only EUR 53.3 million. editor@romania-insider.com