Belco is assuring residents that a recent rash of power outages is unusual, unrelated to any increased summertime electricity demand or capacity, and not expected to continue through the summer.A minor transformer explosion inside Belco’s Park Road substation caused power outages at a number of Hamilton businesses on Thursday.Belco said the transformer tripped early Friday morning due to a fault on a related piece of equipment causing further outages lasting an hour and a half. Belco over the weekend took out the damaged transformer at the Park Road substation and installed a new one.Earlier this month, a load shed when three engines tripped left almost 16,000 homes without power for up to two hours. And in June a fault in an underground cable left some Hamilton businesses without power.Belco said the causes of those three outages were unrelated.“We do not expect there are going to be numerous reoccurrences of outages,” said Ascendant senior vice-president of corporate relations, Linda Smith.Asked whether the outages were related to the need for a new North Power Station, she said no.Commenting Friday, Ms Smith said: “Last week there was a problem in the generating plant, but with the newer equipment engines shut themselves down as a protection mechanism to avoid passing the fault to other engines in the plant — so that system worked as it should.“This week’s (Thursday/Friday’s) fault is unrelated as it is on the transmission system. Also, neither one of them is related to load or capacity. In fact, had the second transformer in the substation not been undergoing maintenance yesterday, it would have picked up the load and there would not have been an outage at all.“She added: “As to whether Belco will build the North Power Station, this is a question that remains open as it is determined how the new power station can be funded. Belco is seeking judicial review of the Energy Commission’s decision, so the matter is presently with the courts.“Government has rejected the majority of Belco’s appeal of the Energy Commission’s finding against a rate increase to support the building of a new North Power Station.