Energy Risk Engineering

Forty years in plants, claims, and the events that didn't happen.

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Power / MarketOct 23, 2026

Substation fire in Brazil also shuts down the town's water treatment

A fire at a CPFL substation in Ipuã, São Paulo state, cut power to residents and stopped the municipal water treatment plant until supply came back; no injuries were reported and the cause wasn't given. One substation feeding critical services is a contingent business interruption story, and risk managers for water utilities and plants should know which substation they depend on and what backup power covers. Source: Energy Incident Register.

Photo: Paulo rsmenezes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Power / MarketOct 22, 2026

Pylon equipment explodes in a Grantham neighborhood

Equipment on a National Grid pylon on Scotney Drive in Grantham, England, exploded late at night, damaging a vehicle and two nearby homes; no one was hurt, and the network rerouted supply automatically, so homes kept power. Overhead line hardware failing next to houses is a third-party property exposure for grid owners even when the network itself rides through, which is why condition data on aging line components matters. Source: LincsOnline.

Photo: Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

BESS / StorageOct 22, 2026

East Hampton battery fire: two million gallons of water and no containment

At a county meeting on the 2023 fire at the NextEra and National Grid battery site, officials said about 5,000 pounds of Novec 1230 mixed with some two million gallons of sprinkler water, which couldn't be held on site; PFPrA and PFOS later reached a public well field about half a mile away. The lesson for battery storage is that firewater runoff is a pollution liability, so ask whether a site has catch basins and a firewater containment plan, and check how pollution exclusions would respond. Source: East Hampton Star.

Photo: BLM California (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

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