A half-hour outage during Super Bowl XLVII was the result of an electrical relay with incorrect settings, says the device’s manufacturer. Shortly after the outage, power company Entegy reported that “a piece of equipment that’s supposed to monitor electrical load malfunctioned, opened a break, and power was cut off,” giving us few specifics. Now, CNN has published a statement from S&C Electric Co, which produced the relay. According to S&C, operators set the device to trip far too low: though no power surge occurred, the electrical load still went over the line, causing the relay to cut power in an attempt to prevent damage.
Super Bowl blackout caused by incorrect switch setting, says manufacturer
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
“We have determined that if higher settings had been applied, the equipment would not have disconnected the power,” said company vice president Michael Edmonds. Entergy didn’t confirm this, but it agreed that “one relay functioned as expected and the other relay did not” during the Super Bowl. The relay, which was turned on in late December 2012, has now been removed.
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