The N.W.T.’s Power Corporation plans to replace 74 hydro poles this year, all of which are located in the town of Hay River. Poles due for replacement include those in the area of Ptarmigan and Robin where a set of extended unplanned outages happened last month.
To begin what the company reported is “critical maintenance work,” they are planning a power outage that will extend north from downtown, spanning from Robin Crescent, Ptarmigan Crescent, Sibetson Road and a small section of Woodland Drive.
Doug Prendergast with NTPC said that while the planned outage is occurring in the same area where extended outages happened last month, the outage activity is “not directly linked” because poles in the area were scheduled to be updated.
“Poles in this area had already been identified for replacement prior to the last month’s unplanned outage,” he said.
Prendergast said the planned partial outage in Hay River this Saturday will affect about 40 households.
The work is scheduled to last about 3 hours, beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, according to a public announcement by NTPC.
The poles are at the “end of their life cycle,” said Prendergast.
“This program (of) replacing aging distribution infrastructure has been in place for the past five to six years in communities we serve across the NWT.”
On May 25, N.W.T.’s Power Corporation reported that power was restored to about 50 households after line crew made repairs to a pole in the Ptarmigan and Robin corner of town following outages in Hay River.
At that time, Prendergast said it was unclear what caused what were two separate partial outages in the community. Prendergast reported the outage lasted between 4 to 5 hours.
Hay River is among South Slave communities recently returned to hydro electric power following extensive repair to a surge tank at the Taltson hydro station
