The power outage on Shelikof Way was due to a failing 40-year-old fuse holder. Most of Sitka’s outages are due to aging infrastructure, but the city has improved its relay coordination system to keep outages localized. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)
Residents of Shelikof Way experienced a short power outage Friday evening (11/10/17).
The lights went out at 9:10 p.m. when a fuse holder failed atop an electric pole. The fuse holder was forty years old. Electric crews responded and restored power around 10:12 p.m. Twelve customers were impacted by the outage.
The trip was localized to that neighborhood, which Electric Director Bryan Bertacchi said is the result of careful planning and a 10-year capital plan.
“The Electric Department has a limited amount of dollars to spend, but we try to use it wisely, especially in the last couple of years. We’ve really tried to invest in the bigger infrastructure and done a lot of work on the lines, especially running north and south of town,” Bertacchi said.
In the past two years, the electric department has also trimmed trees and improved relayed coordination. That’s the system which isolates the faulted section, so it outage doesn’t travel throughout the entire electric grid.
