By Bonnie Culverhouse
Officials with AEP SWEPCO (American Electric Power Southwestern Electric Power Company) met Monday and will meet again today while they try to determine the best course of action to repair the Gilark substation that caught fire early Sunday morning.
Minden Mayor Nick Cox said that at approximately 6 p.m. Monday, AEP representative Dale Colvin informed the city he had been in contact with Entergy, which is actively working on a solution to reduce the duration of an imminent power outage for the City of Minden.
“A mid-morning conference Tuesday will take place involving AEP, Entergy and representatives from the City of Minden,” Cox said. “This call will provide us with a detailed plan on how we can minimize the impact of the power outage.”
Cox added that “it is important to note that at this time, no outage has been scheduled.”
During the Sunday morning fire, the substation suffered significant damage to a *potential transformer, buss and lightning arresters. In particular, the potential transformer exploded and will need to be repaired urgently.”
Gilark substation is Minden’s only tie to the power grid.
* A potential transformer is an instrument transformer which is used for the protection and measurement purposes in the power systems. A potential transformer is mainly used to measure high alternating voltage in a power system.
