UPDATE: More than 2,000 customers remain without power in Charlottetown at 10 p.m. Power will not be restored to some households until after midnight The Guardian

Fire officials were on the site of the fire at the substation earlier Monday. (Guardian photo by Jim Day)

Maritime Electric is continuing its efforts to restore power to large sections of Charlottetown after a fire in the West Royalty substation knocked the entire city, all Kings County and parts of eastern Queens, into the dark Monday morning.

More than 2,00 customers were still without power at 10 p.m. Monday, more than 12 hours after electricity was lost mid-morning.

Maritime Electric spokesperson Kim Griffin said power may not be restored to some customers until midnight or later. She said damage was extensive to a switichg station in West Royalty and the company was tryng to re-route power to customers still in the dark, on a station by station basis.

Maritime Electric was using Island generation most of Monday.

Power first went out in parts of the city at 9:19 a.m. and company officials then shut power down to more than 55,000 customers in central and eastern sections of the province just before 10 a.m. as a precaution until a damage assessment was completed in West Royalty.

Power began returning to parts of the city just after 11 a.m. but remained out for large sections of Charlottetown into the mid-afternoon.

All schools in the Eastern School District closed three hours early because of the major outage.

Griffin said that by 2:20 p.m., some 11,000 customers in Charlottetown were without power. Areas most affected included Inkerman, Brighton, Mt Edward Road, parts of downtown Charlottetown and Sherwood.

"There was a fair bit of damage at the West Royalty substation. We're still assessing the extent," said Griffin. The cause of the fire remains unknown.

Company repair crews and engineers began working on repairs and power began to return to eastern P.E.I. and sections of the city shortly after 11 a.m.

The first outage occurred at 9:19 a.m. which knocked out Mt. Edward Road, University Avenue and Queens Arms areas of Charlottetown, affecting 5,000 customers.

At first, Maritime Electric officials believed it was a pole fire, but shortly after, discovered there was a fire in the West Royalty substation, a major centre for routing power through much of central and eastern P.E.I.

The utility then shut off the power as a safety precaution until the extent of damage was determined, knocking an additional 55,000 customers off the system just before 10 a.m. That shutdown affected the entire city of Charlottetown and surrounding areas and all Kings County.

Also affected by the outage were Hunter River and Rattenbury Road areas.

Charlottetown Fire Department crews, which responded to the first call after 9 a.m., were still on the scene in West Royalty until after 11 a.m. Crews were waiting on the scene while electricity was being restored in case of additional problems.

Griffin said the plan was to start gradually re-energizing the system, starting shortly after 11 a.m. Power was restored to parts of downtown Charlottetown at 11:15 a.m.