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Important message from Eversource

Posted on: March 1, 2017 - 11:45am

 

Good afternoon,

I am emailing to let you know that based on work Eversource is doing to interconnect the new CPV Towantic Generating Plant, there is a heightened risk for power interruptions to customers and municipal facilities in Oxford.  On a normal day, our transmission system, that delivers power from generation plants to substations, operates with multiple redundancies in order to avoid outages.  However, when we are doing construction activities to connect a new power plant such as Towantic, it is necessary to take equipment out of service in order to work on it safely.  Taking this equipment out eliminates the system's redundancy and could result in significant outages if the remaining equipment were to be impacted by weather or suffer any sort of failure.

Beginning later this week and continuing through June, equipment will be taken out of service to complete construction for connecting the Towantic Generating Plant.  During this time, there will be an increased risk for a significant outage event for customers served by the Oxford and Beacon Falls Substations.  To be clear, we don't expect there to be any power outages, but without the normal system redundancies there will be an increased risk for an outage.

We have taken precautionary steps to mitigate this risk.  We have done extensive vegetation clearing of hazard and danger trees and we are pre-staging equipment that would be necessary to use if there were a loss of power.  Additionally crews will be on-call 24/7.  If a problem were to occur, we anticipate that it would take between 6 to 24 hours to fully restore power.

Here is the list of municipal facilities that would be impacted if there were a power outage:
Oxford
Great Oak School
Oxford Center Fire Company
Oxford High School
Oxford Town Hall
Oxford Quaker Farms Fire Company
Quaker Farms School

As a precaution, we urge that the town test all emergency generators associated with these facilities so that if there were to be a power outage you would be ready to turn them on.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks,
Garrett Sheehan

Garrett Sheehan, CEcD
Community Relations and Economic Development Specialist |Eversource
20 Barnabas Road, Newtown, CT 06470 |( 203.270.5801 (office) |( 203.848.4354 (cell)
* garrett.sheehan@eversource.comwww.eversource.com