Duane Hicks
Fort Frances Power Corp. customers will be without power for about eight hours this Sunday (Oct. 4) so Hydro One can perform necessary maintenance at the Eighth Street transformer station.
The outage is scheduled to last from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
The disruption initially was supposed to last for only 10 minutes (9 a.m.-9:10 a.m.), but that duration was increased yesterday afternoon.
“When Hydro One initially scoped the job, they thought that we could get power from an alternate supply,” FFPC CEO Joerg Ruppenstein explained this morning.
“This would mean that the equipment they’re working on would be totally isolated and we would require a 10-minute outage to switch to an alternate supply of energy.
“What has changed is now as they’re getting closer, and they’re doing their job scoping, they found the equipment that feeds us needs work,” Ruppenstein added.
“Basically, what has changed is they thought we would be able to get power from an alternate supply. That is, unfortunately, not possible and our single supply point that we’re being fed from has to have work done on it.
“This means we will have to be without energy for the duration of that work to take place.”
Ruppenstein said the work Hydro One is doing here will be at the transformer station on Eighth Street.
“Basically, Hydro One will be conducting a lot of work on their own system at Eighth Street and due to that, equipment has to be de-energized to be able to have a safe work site,” he noted.
“Unfortunately, that means for the electrical consumers, that while this repair work is being conducted, we’ll be without power.”
Ruppenstein said the FFPC apologizes for any inconvenience caused by the necessary outage.
“I don’t think there’s a good time for a power outage, just one time might be a little better than the rest,” he remarked.
“But if Hydro One has essential repairs, they have to take place,” Ruppenstein stressed. “They have been working with us, and we just felt let’s do it now before the weather changes.
“This is, I guess, as opportune time as any. There’s no snow on the ground yet, and hopefully people won’t have to heat their home too much yet.
“It’s one of those rarities where the equipment that supplies us has to have work done on it to make it safe and reliable for the upcoming winter season,” Ruppenstein said.
“Once again, our sincere apologies. It’s a long outage, but it’s a necessary one to ensure we don’t have future unexpected outages when the weather conditions are a lot less permissible.”
