Alaska News

Alaska Intertie problem causes large power outage in Interior, Mat-Su

A widespread power outage Thursday evening affected thousands of Matanuska Electric Association and Golden Valley Electric Association customers along the Railbelt from Houston to the Fairbanks area.

The outage was triggered by an issue on the Alaska Intertie transmission line near Houston, according to Julie Estey, MEA spokesperson.

Golden Valley Electric posted on Facebook around 6:30 p.m. that it had started its own generators after the outage. "Power should be restored shortly," the post said. A spokesperson for the utility said she did not know the extent of the Interior outage.

Estey said the transmission line fault was reported around 5:30 p.m. and about 7,000 MEA customers lost power. At 9:30 p.m., MEA reported that power had been restored to all its customers.

MEA believes the outage was caused by lightning striking a transmission line, according to a post on the company's Facebook page.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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