Xcel says power restored to 195,000 Aurora area customers after transformer failed

AURORA | Almost 200,000 Xcel and Core Power customers were without power, some for hours, across Aurora and parts of Denver, Arapahoe and Douglas counties after a transformer failed, Xcel spokesperson Michelle Aguayo said in a statement late Sunday.

The outage, affecting areas near DIA, across Aurora and south toward Douglas County was repaired in sections, with most areas no longer reporting outages at about 6 p.m.

Officials said CORE Electric customers were also affected by the outage because of the “connectivity” of the power grid.

“A transformer failed at an Xcel Energy substation resulting in damage to other equipment,” Aguayo said. “The failure and damage caused an outage that cascaded to include other substations.”

The widespread power outages Sunday afternoon prompted police to ask residents not to call 911 to report power electricity outages or non-functioning traffic signals.

At about 5 p.m., officials from the CORE Electric Cooperative reported to the Sentinel that about 45,000 customers in Arapahoe and Douglas counties were still without power. 

“Crews acted quickly to reroute power and restore service safely,” Aguayo said. “The first customers were restored at 3:10 p.m. and by 5:47 p.m. all customers had power restored. “

Officials said Xcel will replace the transformer.