Entergy New Orleans, the company responsible for providing power to the Superdome, announced Friday that an investigation into the reasons for the Super Bowl blackout has determined that a faulty relay is to blame.
Reports on Thursday indicated things were heading in that direction and the company has now confirmed that the newly installed equipment didn’t work correctly. Reuters reports that the company said relay had been installed inside switching gear to protect the Superdome from a failure involving an incoming power line, but the relay itself failed and caused the outage. Adding even more irony to the situation is the fact that the relay had recently been installed specifically because there was fear that the Superdome was vulnerable to power failure.
“While some further analysis remains, we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state,” Charles Rice, president and chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans, said in a statement.
Officials from Entergy are scheduled to go in front of the New Orleans City Council on Friday to talk about why the building went dark for 34 minutes last Sunday night. The relay had been in place for other big events, including the Sugar Bowl, and it has now been removed and replaced.