By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

power outages

Many areas of Alberta left in the dark Sunday afternoon

Jun 7, 2020 | 3:56 PM

Power outages were reported Sunday afternoon in various parts of the province, including Red Deer, Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

The City of Red Deer, which operates its own system, says power was restored in the city entirely by 3:50, about one hour after alarms first started going off.

“We lost a fair chunk of power, probably about 10 per cent of customers at any given time,” says Jim Jorgenson, manager of the City’s Electric, Light and Power department.

“It wasn’t necessarily related to the City’s system. The long story short is that some settings on our system were tripped or triggered by whatever happened on the provincial system.”

Meantime, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) tweeted that it was related to inclement weather.

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Communications Manager Tara Deweerd tells rdnewsNOW the AESO hass officially determined that a lightning strike on the B.C. side. caused all the fuss.

Fortis Alberta tweeted earlier that the issue involved a tie line.

“To generate electricity in Alberta, we have gas, coal and dams within the provincial boundaries,” says Jorgensen. “We also have big lines that tie into B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba so that we can import or export power depending on the circumstances. We could be importing a bunch of power, which is the case today, and it involved an overhead line that connects the two big provincial grids.”

Jorgensen describes the event as rare and unique, adding that while outages may linger throughout the province, Red Deerians shouldn’t experience any further issues.

He adds that the City’s system responded like it’s supposed to.

lightning strike on BC side, things have returned to normal, system recovered… communic mngr tara deweerd

tara.