Thousands without power as Halifax region hit with widespread outages amid heat wave

The Nova Scotia Power headquarters is seen in Halifax on Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

More than 44,000 Nova Scotia Power customers are without power in the Halifax area Friday night as the province deals with a heat wave.

According to Nova Scotia Power, the outage started at Lakeside Substation at 8:01 p.m. due to a failed piece of equipment. They said they expected power to be restored by 11:59 p.m.

Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency district chief of operations Robert Hebb told CTV News Atlantic that crews were on the scene after a fire emerged at the substation.

“They have one section of the substation that runs at 138,000 volts. There’s a series of switches that control that area, and one of those switches let go, exploded and caught fire,” he said.

Hebb added that the switch is “about the size of a 10-gallon pail” and is filled with oil.

The massive outage stretches from Bedford to East Dover and Ketch Harbour.

A spokesperson with Nova Scotia Power confirmed it has nothing to do with load shedding. A previous alert that listed salt contamination as the cause was a mistake and the utility apologizes for that error.