Outages rank high on the list of facility management nightmares. What if your facility is the Mercedes-Benz Superdome? What if the Super Bowl is being played? Today the source of the outage has been identified.
Entergy New Orleans, Inc. has announced that it has traced the cause of Sunday's outage to an electrical relay device.
The device was specifically installed to protect the Mercedes-Benz Superdome equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium.
While the relay functioned without issue during a number of high-profile events – including the New Orleans Bowl, the New Orleans Saints–Carolina Panthers game, and the Sugar Bowl – during Sunday's game, the relay device triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have, causing the partial outage.
This device has since been removed from service and new replacement equipment is being evaluated.
"While some further analysis remains, we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state," says Charles Rice, president and chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans.
Entergy New Orleans, Inc. is an electric and gas utility serving Orleans Parish and is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. The company provides electricity to more than 160,000 customers and natural gas to more than 100,000 customers in Orleans Parish.