The U experienced an hour-long blackout Wednesday when three electrical substations on campus went offline.
At 8:59 a.m., the U’s substations were kicked off a Rocky Mountain Power electrical grid after reported equipment failures. By 9:45 a.m., power was restored to the substation at the medical center and Research Park’s substation. Power was restored to the lower campus substation shortly afterward.
“Three substations were involved and we suspect that equipment failure may have been the cause,” said Dave Eskelsen, spokesman for Rocky Mountain Power. “We’ll have engineers from our substation-operations group look closer into what caused this large outage.”
This is one of a handful of power outages at the U this month. On July 5 and July 6, the U experienced a power outage after an old electrical strip and switch in the campus electrical system exploded. These failures blacked out 18 buildings around campus.
Wednesday’s blackout, however, was not tied to any electrical malfunctions on campus.
“It was a Rocky Mountain Power failure,” said David Henry, director of campus utility services. “This outage wasn’t related to equipment in our substations or our electrical systems on campus.”