Richmond streetlight outages traced to substation problem
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An unspecified equipment problem at a Richmond substation knocked out streetlights across multiple neighborhoods Tuesday night, leaving stretches of the city in darkness.
Why it matters: Dark streets can pose safety risks for pedestrians, and some residents say it's becoming a recurring issue.
The intrigue: The outages coincided with a federal power grid emergency in the Mid-Atlantic, but there's no confirmed connection.
- The federal emergency order was intended to prevent blackouts during unusually high electricity demand.
Driving the news: The issue at Trafford Substation, which helps distribute electricity to streetlights, caused a roughly three-hour outage that was resolved Tuesday night, Richmond transportation spokesperson Jensen Gavulic tells Axios.
- The city is still determining how many lights and neighborhoods were affected.
What we know: Residents from the Fan to Scott's Addition and Oregon Hill to Byrd Park reported dark streets Tuesday night, with some saying on social media that it's been happening repeatedly.
- At least four 311 complaints filed within two hours reported streetlights out around Floyd and Rosewood avenues, per an Axios review.
- An Axios reporter also witnessed all the streetlights out on Robinson Street.
- Similar 311 requests in August and September also flagged repeated issues near Arthur Ashe, Grove Avenue and Strawberry Street.
How it works: Dominion Energy supplies electricity to Richmond's streetlights, but who handles repairs depends on who owns the lights and which equipment is affected, Dominion spokesperson Craig Carper tells Axios.
- Richmond operates its own streetlight electrical system across much of the city, while Dominion maintains thousands of lights in southwest Richmond, per a July city audit.
- Carper confirmed to Axios that the streetlights reported out Tuesday aren't Dominion-owned and says it found no outages on the utility's end that would explain the problem.
Zoom out: Richmond spent $3.6 million on a streetlight inventory project between 2021 and 2025, but the July audit found the inventory was still incomplete and inaccurate.
- Auditors also found the city lacked a centralized system to track repairs, making it difficult to determine how long outages went unresolved.
Help us track it: Have you noticed streetlights going out in your neighborhood? Tell us where, when and whether it's happened before at [email protected].