Hotline of power engineering specialists:
February 5 at 12:51 p.m. the conductor 110 kV «Pigment» of IDGC of Centre — Tambovenergo division, which supplies electricity to most of the city of Tambov, was de-energized. The cause was an uncoordinated removal of equipment owned by OJSC «Pigment». The work was performed by personnel of the enterprise without authorization of the operator of the Grid Control Centre of IDGC of Centre — Tambovenergo division, in violation of the rules. Erroneous actions of the employees of OJSC «Pigment» (transformer protection circuit cables were cut) resulted in equipment damage and power supply interruption. Electricity supply was interrupted for consumers with a total load of 20 MW, three substations – the 35 kV substation «Tulinovskaya», the 110 kV substation «Pigment», and 35 kV substation # 1 «City» were de-energized. Critical infrastructure of Tambov and some settlements in the Tambov region were powered down.
For 27 minutes, the staff of IDGC of Centre — Tambovenergo division eliminated the consequences of the outage, and all consumers were re-energized.
Currently, a commission has been set to investigate the incident. It is composed of government representatives, IDGC of Centre — Tambovenergo division, RTN, and OJSC «Pigment».