Equipment failure cuts power to Xcel customers in region

NEW LONDON — A total of 714 Xcel Energy customers in New London, Paynesville and Spicer were without power for more than four hours Wednesday night due to equipment failure at the New London substation.

Xcel spokesman Tom Hoen said the outage began at 5:12 p.m. and was cleared at 9:51 p.m. Wednesday. Workers had to replace a substation breaker and a couple of regulators, said Hoen.

The Xcel outage only affected a portion of New London and did not affect customers served by Kandiyohi Power Cooperative, according to Diane Maurice, co-op manager of marketing and customer service. Maurice said the cooperative serves about half of New London.