OREANDA-NEWS. November 23, 2007. In the next few hours, the repair crews of OAO "Kamchatskenergo" will restore power to consumers in several districts of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky after the blackout caused by equipment failure at the 110 kV Dachnaya Substation, reported the press-centre of RAO "UES of Russia".

In the evening of 21 November, a short circuit in the distribution grids damaged the power and transformer equipment at the Dachnaya Substation, which resulted in loss of power to 17,000 consumers in the north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The backup power supply systems were immediately used to restore power supply to the majority of consumers, primarily, to the heating units and the public infrastructure facilities, such as child care and health care systems.

It is expected that power supply will be fully restored tomorrow morning, at about 3 or 4 a.m. local time. After the power supply is restored, the temporary supply scheme will be replaced with the permanent one.

After that Kamchatskenergo will undertake equipment repairs and modernization of the Dachnaya Substation. In particular, the repair crews will install a standby transformer and a modern microprocessor relay protection equipment. Tomorrow, a transformer will be brought to the substation from the Apacha Substation located 100 km away, where it has been which mothballed since 2002.

Meanwhile an IL-76 transport aircraft leased from the Ministry of Emergencies will bring the power equipment needed for the repairs, including switchgear cubicles. It also has on board a measuring laboratory for testing and commissioning the transformer from the Apacha Substation.

Tomorrow, an An-125 (aka Ruslan) carrier aircraft will take a mobile transformer substation from the Moscow Region to the Dachnaya Substation. The substation will ensure reliable power supply during the repairs at the substation.

The repairs are carried out 24 hours a day and are coordinated by an Operational Headquarters created by RAO "UES of Russia" to control the accident management process. In this situation, RAO "UES of Russia" strongly objects to the statement made the Kamchatsky Kray's Alexey Kuzmitsky who accused the energy company of negligence and failure to install standby diesel generators at the socially important facilities, calling on the consumers affected by the blackout not to pay for their electricity in November.

Neither RAO "UES of Russia" nor Kamchatskenergo deny responsibility. However, the statements made by the governor during the repair period look as if he were trying to avoid all responsibility for what has happened. First, under the current laws, it is the Governor who is responsible for installation of standby diesel generators at the socially important facilities. Second, Mr. Kuzmitsky does not mention for some reason that the arrears owed by the region's municipal-owned consumers are in excess of 1 billion Rubles, which has a serious impact on the state of equipment of Kamchatskenergo.