Loss of power to 15,000 customers in Salt Lake/Utah counties blamed on bad insulator

SALT LAKE CITY — A power outage in Utah affected the commutes and dinner plans of approximately 15,000 Rocky Mountain Power customers in Riverton, South Jordan, and Draper on Tuesday night.

By 7 p.m., the utility said that a problem with an insulator caused the outage.

“It was a bad insulator on a piece of equipment on a private business,” said RMP spokesman Johna Whitesides. “Sometimes larger customers will have some of their own equipment (a substation) that feeds off of our transmission lines so that they can run their operations.

Whitesides said that a malfunction on these private sites, or an electricity surge, will trip an outage.

He compared what happened Tuesday to someone plugging in too many appliances to a surge protector.

During the height of the outage, KSL received reports of darkened intersections and major traffic delays. The UDOT traffic management page highlighted traffic delays both east- and westbound on 114,000 South between I-15 and 2700 West.

We are aware of a power outage affecting 15,009 customers in Riverton, South Jordan, and Draper, UT. The cause of the outage is under investigation. Crews are working to restore power as safely and quickly as possible. pic.twitter.com/K2e9BAys2U

— Rocky Mountain Power UT (@RMP_Utah) November 15, 2023

 This story may be updated.

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