As of 9 o'clock this morning, power was restored to most customers, following an outage that affected much of the Southern Yukon. The power went out just after 8 a.m., after routine filter maintenance in our Whitehorse Number 4 hydro plant inadvertently caused the unit to trip off. We apologize for the inconvenience.
by Murray Lundberg
I’ve decided that the frequent power outages are a good thing, a contribution by our power providers to our healthy Yukon lifestyle. Today’s blog at http://explorenorth.com/wordpress/?p=459 explains how I came to that conclusion 😊
11.04.2009
by Yeah Right
I live in Riverdale and the power didn’t come on here until 10:52 AM (thank god for cell phones)
11.06.2009
by Yukon Energy
To Yeah Right: Hmmm, I do know that the other electrical provider in town had an issue on Nov. 5th that caused an outage in Riverdale. I wonder if that is what you are referring to? Certainly on Nov. 4th Riverdale was the first area to get power restored; it was only out for about 15 minutes or so. Give us a call if you want us to look into this further for you.
11.09.2009
by Boo Bear
I live off the Mayo Road. Our area frequently experiences power outages/serges - Why? I don’t believe other areas, such as downtown, experience even a fraction as many outages as my area does. Considering we use significantly less power, why is this an issue?
I see in an earlier reply someone asked a similar question and it went unanswered. I think this blog is a nice idea. Of all that is posted the most useful information is tips on how people can conserve energy. I think what Yukoners really want to know is that for all the big money we shell out each month, why are there so many power outages, specicially, rural Whitehorse??? And what Yukon Energy intends to do about it. I think people would be more interested in recieving a follow up on that.
11.09.2009
by Yukon Energy
Thanks Boo Bear for your comment and question. Since there is not enough space here to answer you fully, we will spend the next entry talking about outages and reliability.
11.10.2009
by hollander
Why is routine maintenance knocking out the power? In all seriousness, if part of the mission for YEC is to deliver “reliable” power to the Yukon, then the fact that routine maintenance is causing an outage should cause people to seriously question the priority YEC places on reliability.
The 2008 YEC annual report speaks of changes to the system that are supposed to improve reliability through 2009. As of now, I see virtually no evidence of improved reliability. I can try to understand the challenges with generating and delivering power to a relatively small # of customers over such a large area. What I can’t understand is the constant rationalization of unplanned and (admittedly in nearly 50% of the case in 2008) TOTALLY PREVENTABLE power outages.
I pay for reliability and YEC makes it their mission to ensure reliable supply of electricity. They fail in executing their mission on a regular basis. In other industries, if a product or service I purchase proves to be unreliable, I ask the vendor how they’re going to a) make it up to me (i.e. refund, discount, etc) and b) fix the problem. YEC has also repeatedly failed to deliver acceptable answers to these questions.
For those who say “deal with it”, it is not acceptable for these outages to be one more “quaint thing about the Yukon” where we all get to huddle around candles. We may be remote and northern, but in 2009, this is not a reason to accept substandard service from a crown corporation no less, whose mission is to apparently be reliable.
11.11.2009
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