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What caused power outages in Austin this week? Officials say ERCOT isn't to blame

East Austin residents were left in the dark for several hours amid the record-breaking heat.

AUSTIN, Texas — Power is back up across Austin after outages left about 15,000 people in the dark Wednesday night.

Austin hit 109 degrees on Wednesday, which led to high energy usage. However, officials say the issue wasn't related to the Texas power grid.

Mayor Kirk Watson said the issue was caused by a piece of substation equipment tripping offline from high energy usage. Austin Energy confirmed it was a local problem and "not an ERCOT grid outage."

The outages were first reported just after 5:30 p.m. and primarily impacted East Austin. The issue was resolved four hours later.

Austin Energy said customers were notified and updated on the outages through text.

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