BPA schedules last overnight outage impacting Troy

Troy will be without power later this week after a planned outage by the Bonneville Power Administration.

According to a BPA news release, the overnight outage will occur from 11 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, until 6 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 10. This outage and two other outages taken in August are necessary to replace a circuit breaker that failed in May.

In August, BPA took outages to perform maintenance in preparation for installation of the new breaker. This final outage was scheduled to occur on Thursday, Sept. 26 but was canceled due to high winds in the area that interrupted power. That windstorm damaged three BPA lines in multiple locations. The crew scheduled to do the planned overnight maintenance work redirected its efforts to identifying and repairing the windstorm damage.

“The transmission system is able to function without that breaker but is not at its full capacity without it,” said Misty Gardelle, Kalispell Substation Operations Chief. “We are eager to get the breaker back in service before winter. Having the system at full strength will benefit everyone and help us avoid unplanned outages.”

The substation where the breaker is located is the only feed into the City of Troy and surrounding area. This is referred to as a “radial feed,” meaning that when maintenance at that substation or on the line feeding that substation needs to be done, electricity cannot get to homes and businesses served by the City of Troy. BPA has multiple points across the Pacific Northwest that are radially fed.

“We understand the impact of the power being out and try to minimize the impact by scheduling overnight outages,” said Gardelle. “We also understand the frustration caused by these frequent but necessary outages.”