By Greg Fry

Heavy air conditioning use partly to blame for Sahali power outages

Jun 19, 2018 | 3:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — A large number of people cranking up their air conditioners was partly to blame for two large power outages in the Upper Sahali area Sunday and Monday nights.

Close to 1,900 customers — the same ones both days according to BC Hydro — lost power. On Sunday, the outage started at 3:45 p.m. and power was restored by 7:00 that night. Monday’s outage was much longer however, starting at 7:00 p.m. and continuing until just after 4:30 this morning.

“Both of these were due to equipment failure,” says Dag Sharman, community relations manager for the Thompson-Okanagan-Columbia region. “But it does happen from time to time on power systems, including when we have a heavy load on the system which is a result of air conditioning and that sort of thing when we have a lot of heat.”

He says the fact the hydro infrastructure is located underground made the wait longer.

“So, it makes it more difficult to locate the problem and then of course more difficult to restore power because you have to fix the problem. It’s much easier when it’s overhead equipment. You can find the problem more easily and more quickly in most cases and you can repair it more easily and more quickly because it’s more accessible.”

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Sharman notes the fact it happened to the same customers over two consecutive nights was “just a stroke of bad luck.”

“Power outages can happen, equipment can fail on a power system like this. I mean, we have over 75,000 kilometres of power lines across the province so there will be problems along any electrical system that is exposed to the weather and to various other factors.”