A serious fire in a substation led to an almost 24-hour power failure in parts of the Rhein-Sieg district with tens of thousands of people affected.
The supplier Westnetz announced on Saturday evening that the majority of the people could probably be supplied with electricity again in the evening hours.
The goal is a gradual connection of the affected communities.
The supply had been interrupted in several municipalities since the fire on Friday evening.
According to the status of reports from Saturday morning, 41,000 residents in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, Much and Ruppichteroth without electricity. According to Westnetz, however, numerous emergency power generators have been put into operation at a wide variety of locations in the affected municipalities in the meantime. It was initially unclear in how many households, for example, the heating did not work in the cool temperatures due to a lack of electricity.
"If everything goes according to plan, we will be able to supply most of the residents with electricity again this evening," said the head of the Westnetz regional center in Sieg, Christopher Jonas.
Two ways were worked on in parallel: the cleaning and repair of the 10,000-volt switchgear, which was badly damaged by the flames, and a new connection to a 30,000-volt voltage level, which works like a bypass.
On Twitter, several users criticized Westnetz for the long outage and that there were no cross connections anyway for an emergency.
Authorities call for neighborhood help
The authorities also called for neighborhood help after an emergency power supply had been set up for important buildings. "It is now important that the citizens take care of elderly or single people in their neighborhood and inform the local fire department if help is needed," said District Administrator Sebastian Schuster (CDU) at noon after a crisis meeting with representatives of the communities. the emergency services and the utility.
When setting up and operating emergency power generators, the focus was on old people's homes, said a spokeswoman for the district. There are also residents there who have to be ventilated. At the crisis meeting, however, it also became clear that there was a need for emergency power among farmers, she said with reference to milking machines. She described the situation in the affected communities as calm. At least one municipality reported that residents had switched to friends and neighbors who still had electricity.
In addition, according to information from the authorities, childcare places have been set up in schools in the affected communities for people who cannot take care of themselves or who need power-dependent medical equipment or are dependent on medical care. The fire brigade advised in a warning on the district's website to reduce power consumption using batteries to the bare minimum and to listen to the radio using battery devices.
According to Westnetz's previous knowledge, a short circuit triggered the fire in the transformer station in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid early on Friday evening, as a company spokeswoman said.
The system was badly damaged.
In written reports from Westnetz, there was talk of a technical defect, as a result of which a fire broke out in the plant at around 7.15 p.m.