Con Ed transformer flash in New York causes brief outage

NEW YORK — The lights flickered briefly in New York City and beyond after a transformer failed at a Con Ed substation in Brooklyn.

A flash and smoke could be seen at the Vinegar Hill facility. The outage lasted less than one-tenth of one second, but nevertheless highlighted the interconnected nature of the high-voltage electrical system serving New York City and the surrounding region — and how quickly problems can spread.

Redundancy measures in place worked, Con Ed officials said. The high-voltage transformer that short-circuited was isolated as breakers automatically flipped. Residents experienced the voltage dip from the problem as a flickering of the lights just after midnight.

“These are pretty infrequent events. We have multiple redundant sets of transformers so that the lights stay on,” said Matt Ketschke, president of Con Ed of New York, in an interview with local TV reporters.

But the root cause is under investigation. The state’s utility regulator said Con Ed would have to report its findings to the agency.

“Con Edison must complete an in-depth root cause analysis of the power disruption last night, and must report the findings,” Department of Public Service spokesman Jim Denn said in a statement. “DPS staff is closely engaged in the investigation and will take appropriate regulatory steps as more information becomes available.”

Mayor Eric Adams said the outage led to numerous elevator malfunctions and issues on the MTA system.

“I was finishing up a meeting when I saw the lights flicker; I thought nothing of it until I got a notification” from the New York City Emergency Management Department commissioner, Adams said at a press briefing Friday. “But it appears as though this brief outage impacted several boroughs and thank God there was no loss of life that was connected to this.”

Con Ed is building a new “clean energy hub” next to the substation where the incident occurred.

The company wants offshore wind developers to plug into its system at the new substation that will also serve growing demand for electricity in the area and support reliability. Public Service Commission Chair Rory Christian attended an event kicking off the construction of that project in September.

Con Ed has come under fire for more extensive outages and transformer malfunctions before.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to revoke the company’s franchise that allows it to run the electrical system in New York City after outages in Manhattan and Brooklyn in 2019. Ultimately, Con Ed continued to operate.

The company agreed to an $82 million settlement covering the two outages and other alleged failures related to storm response.

An arc flash from a Con Ed transformer in Astoria in December 2018 lit the skies blue, knocked out power to LaGuardia Airport and led Cuomo to tote an alien mask. The results of an investigation into that incident have not been made public.

The latest Con Ed mishap had impacts across the Hudson River, causing lights to flicker in parts of northern New Jersey, though there were no widespread outages or substantial impact anywhere in the state, according to the state’s Board of Public Utilities.

“The electrical system for all of North America is interconnected, so the power that flows here is also interconnected with the systems that serve Long Island, Westchester County and New Jersey,” Ketschke said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority experienced some sporadic signal issues and blown fuses after the ConEd incident, said transit agency head Janno Lieber. Two people were stuck in elevators but rescued, and a few elevators were still having issues Friday morning, as crews worked on repairs.

Ketschke said the high-voltage transformer involved was definitely damaged, and that the utility was evaluating repairs needed but that no further disruptions were expected.

Janaki Chadha contributed to this report.