BC Hydro's Douglas Street Substation. (Image Credit: Google Maps)

By Victor Kaisar

Power Outage

Equipment failure at Douglas substation causes large power outage in Kamloops Saturday

Aug 10, 2025 | 10:27 AM

KAMLOOPS — BC Hydro says a large power outage that impacted over 27,000 customers in Kamloops Saturday (Aug. 9) night was caused by an issue at the Douglas Street substation.

Spokesperson Erika Webster says power was knocked out after a piece of equipment known as a bus failed around 10:20 p.m. She said it impacted “pretty much all of the customers” who are connected to that substation.

“Our crews moved customers over to a different circuit on the grid and then they fixed that piece of equipment,” Webster told CFJC Today.

A number of power outages lasted less than five minutes and BC Hydro says all power was restored by 11:00 p.m. Saturday.

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Webster also said BC Hydro crews often switch customers over to different circuits in order to work on equipment so that people don’t have to endure long power outages.

“They’re really used to doing things like that,” Webster added. “They look at the whole grid and they move customers over as needed. It’s why some power was back on within five minutes yesterday, while others took about 20 minutes because they have to go through things one circuit at a time.”

Webster said while the outage was unfortunate, unforeseen equipment failures like this tend to happen on occasion.

“We never want that to happen as we want to make sure that people have power to turn the lights on,” Webster said. “But we have such a vast system across the province and sometimes there is a break in the cog.”

“Luckily, in most cases we can switch people over and then go and fix things.”