Elevated risk of power outage - North & South Campuses

04 August 2023

Over the last several months we have seen an abnormal amount of power outages affecting the North and South campuses and surrounding communities. A number of these outages have been related to a project to upgrade EPCOR infrastructure, which will be completed in Spring 2024. As a result, North and South Campus are at an elevated risk of a power outage. This risk is highest in the hot summer months when the University experiences its peak electrical load and lighting strikes can also cause disruption to electrical systems.

Review your contingency plans to avoid unnecessary disruptions
All faculty and staff are required to have contingency plans and mitigation measures in place that consider the eventuality of a critical building system failure that could impact our teaching and research. The following are examples you may want to consider:
  • requesting emergency power,
  • installing surge protectors, auxiliary power units, and/or alarms on sensitive / critical equipment
  • designating secondary research freezer locations, etc.
Be sure to test and inspect the mitigation and control measures you have in place to protect critical systems and equipment.

Contact Facilities and Operations Facility Service Partner for assistance should you wish to explore any of these measures. Additional controls may be required depending on activity and risk.

It is vital that your space contacts in ARISe be up to date as we rely on that information to alert occupants of outages affecting their buildings. Contact HSE at hse.info@ualberta.ca if you require assistance with updating contacts for research spaces.

Need help building a contingency plan?
Review the Emergency Management website. In the READY section on the website, you will see templates to build unit action plans. In the RECOVER section on the website, you will see templates to build continuity plans.