ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Superbowl Power outtage...

Did someone forget to put the lights in manual vs. override?

I think they're controlled by our server too ...

Now THIS would be a good service call


Outside feed? Beyonce knocked out a recloser??

And the finger pointing starts.

Entergy New Orleans is apparently saying on their Twitter account that the problem is not with their utility, they were providing power to the stadium.

Found a little more from another news article from the local news papers online service.

Entergy and SMG, the management company of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, issued a statement late Sunday explaining the power loss:

"Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue.

"Backup generators kicked in immediately as designed. Entergy and SMG subsequently coordinated start up procedures, ensuring that full power was safely restored to the Superdome.

"The fault-sensing equipment activated where the Superdome equipment intersects with Entergy’s feed into the facility.

Full article here: http://www.nola.com/superbowl/index...3_fans_officials.html#incart_maj-story-1

This is my story, and I'm sticking to it:

Blame the Energy Code. I predicted this exact thing when the energy codes first came out a few years ago.

Commercial place: everything on occupancy detectors or timers. Timers limited to 2 hours in 'manual' mode, then return to program.

I bet someone hit the 'bypass' mode tolight up the stadium - you can be sure the SuperBowl is not a 'programmed' event. Two hours later and "CLUNK" as the timer kills the lights. Now we get to wait 20 minuted for the lights to re-strike.

I predicted it would happen during an NBA playoff. Close enough.

I'm with Reno.

I'm cynically assuming that the official line is to cover the extremely embarrassing reality: Smart Power over thought the situation.

Abnormality in the system, indeed.

"This moment of darkness was brought to you in memory of the Katrina victims"

I just find it interesting that from what I saw on TV only half the stadium lights went out. I thought they would all be controlled from the same system and all go out.

Apparently the halftime show can not be blamed for the outage as it was on generator power according to the Sr. Vice President of SMG who operate the stadium.

I thought that some medium voltage switchgear was tripped out.

Even half a stadium would draw more than 5,000 kVA at 480Y277.

Power was cut to more than just the lights.