The City of Tonkawa would like to explain the purpose of Aug; 31 city-wide scheduled power outage.During a routine inspection of the City of Tonkawa’s electric substation by OMPA ( Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority) on 08/30/2023 a feeder switch on circuit 54 was recording a temperature of 320 degrees on 1 of the 3 feeder switches that control the 3-phase power, this switch is directly connected to the buss work of the system which feeds 7200 volts of power through each phase.The Tonkawa Electric department is going to have to take a city-wide outage on 08/31/2023 at 11 p.m. continuing until approximately 1 a.m. 09/01/2023 to complete the repair to the high current switch.If we don’t make this needed repair as soon as possible we run the risk that we could experience catastrophic damage to the entire substation and transformer, this damage would result in expenses in excess of $500,000.00 and an untold amount of downtime to make repairs to the substation which could result in an extended amount of downtime to the entire substation.The City of Tonkawa is currently undergoing a major upgrade to the electric substation including an additional transformer being placed in service which would allow for maintenance issues to be less detrimental to the citizens of Tonkawa in the future, this upgrade is currently a 2.5 million dollar project including the cost of the transformer.We sincerely apologize for any issues that this may cause, but please be patient with us as we make the needed repairs to continue servicing the community of Tonkawa.Sincerely, Noel Clonts , Public works Director, City of Tonkawa ...
