Students may notice numerous power outages across campus over the next six months as Facilities Management upgrades the University's medium voltage electrical distribution system.
There will be between 20 and 40 scheduled power outages, occurring at a rate of about three a month, said Courtney McCracken, project manager for Facilities Management. If the number of outages reaches the upper estimate of 40, the work could take more than six months to complete, he said.
"Typically ... we try to do them scheduled around people's work schedules and so on. We do a lot of ... Saturdays," McCracken said.
There have been about 10 power outages so far, McCracken said, in dorms including Caswell, Hegeman, Littlefield and Slater halls and Hope College.
Facilities Management usually informs the Office of Residential Life of impending outages about three weeks in advance, McCracken said. ResLife then notifies students through e-mail, said Tom Forsberg, associate director of housing and residential life.
"In general terms, these outages, as much as possible, are scheduled to have minimal impact in terms of occupants," he said. "If we have to do one, we do it over the Thanksgiving break, where there's a minimal number of people, or during winter recess, perhaps during spring break, things of that nature."
Facilities Management also usually posts signs in all the affected residence halls, McCracken said.
But the outages so far have taken some students by surprise.
Christian Tookes '09 said he woke up in Slater one day to find the power out. He called the Department of Public Safety, which told him that Facilities Management had turned off the power to work.
Facilities Management "posted stuff all over the dorm or whatever, that they were going to have one, but no one knew. Because I didn't know, and I come into the dorm every day - it obviously wasn't somewhere you could see," Tookes said.
The power outages are part of a project to upgrade different components of the medium voltage electrical distribution system in order to improve its reliability and effectiveness. The system provides electrical power for most buildings on campus, excluding some smaller buildings that get power from the city's grid.
"The overall objective is pretty straightforward ... we got a bunch of older equipment we want to replace with more reliable, new equipment," McCracken said, "We're increasing the capacity of the system to handle new loads as we build new buildings."
The power outages are necessary for the safety of workers who are replacing old components with newer ones. Before taking out a component, McCracken said, it is important to shut the power off in the building so that it will be safe to work. Then, after the new component is in place, the power would be turned back on. Each power outage should take generally somewhere between four and eight hours.
The entire project will cost between $7 million and $10 million, McCracken said.
