Device Setting Triggered Super Bowl Outage

“Human error appears to have played a role in the partial power outage that disrupted the Super Bowl last Sunday in New Orleans.”

“Utility Entergy Corp. ETR -0.75% said Friday that it had traced the problem to a relatively inexpensive electrical relay device costing several thousand dollars that was recently installed as part of a $4.2-million electrical upgrade. The upgrade was intended to make service to the Superdome, the site of the game between the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens, more reliable. Instead, it caused the stadium to lose about half its power supply after it erroneously activated protective equipment that should have remained inactive. The vendor that furnished the part, S&C Electric Co. of Chicago, said Friday that the problem was triggered because some settings on the relay device appear to have been set too low, making it overly sensitive.”

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