Mayor Pond provides short notes on recent BC Hydro work that led to overnight planned power outage

 

The full scope of last night's BC Hydro planned power outage
for the Prince Rupert area
(from BC Hydro website)

Mayor Herb Pond made note of some of the work around town in Prince Rupert recently by BC Hydro, noting last night of the plans for the wide scale power outage that had been planned for the community in the overnight period.

"A good deal of our community tonight is gong to go dark and so I don't think it's 100 percent because some of the areas have already been done I think. 

But a large portion of our community and if you go on the BC Hydro planned outages website, you'll see, that large swaths of the community will be powered down from Midnight through to approximately 6 in the morning.

What has been happening over the course of quite an extended period of time, you've seen the BC Hydro trucks and their contractor trucks, going all through our neighbourhoods replacing transformers to dual voltage transformers, as they prepare to change the voltage in our overhead power lines.

The higher voltage is more efficient, there's less loss in the lines and so that's setting up Prince Rupert for the future. 

But in order to switch over they need to literally turn the power off and then go to each and every one of those transformers all through town - that's what I understand anyway - and flick them from whatever voltage it is now, to the new voltage and then power it all up in the morning.

You won't notice a difference in your home, what hits your home will be the same voltage you've always had"

Last night appears to have been the last of the lengthy overnight outages for the community, a welcome thing with colder weather now part of our shift to fall. As the prospect of no lights and no heat would likely gain more than  few phone calls related to the timing of it all.

There are still however some power interruptions planned through the day and you can check the BC Hydro website here, to see when they may impact on your part of town.

More notes on BC Hydro in the region can be reviewed here.