The Kingston campus will experience a planned power outage on March 16 from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. in order to repair essential voltage equipment.
The outage, planned to occur during spring break, was initially announced by the administration on Jan. 12 via an email from URI Communications.
“Equipment ages. It needs replacement from time to time,” Robert Bozikowski, assistant director of the Facilities Operations department, said.
The need for the outage comes because a portion of a switch that is used to connect and disconnect electricity from the university’s power grid has failed due to an “indeterminate” cause, says David Lamb, director of facilities operations.
“These are maintenance items that we try to attend to to the best of our ability, and [we] try to make these improvements before something major happens,” Lamb said.
The preparatory email, sent to all members of the URI community, links to a list of the buildings that will be affected by the outage so that any students who will be on campus at the time can plan accordingly. Notably, Robert L. Carothers Library, The Memorial Union, its mailroom and printing services, and both Butterfield and Hope Commons dining hall will be affected by the outage.
The International Engineering Program [IEP] house, which houses most international students, will not be affected. This building, as well as the Texas Instruments house, have their power directly supplied by National Grid, meaning it is not necessary for them to lose power as well, says David Lamb.
Several other buildings that are directly supplied across Upper College Road and Fraternity Circle will also not be affected.
Students who will be on campus during spring break are advised to bundle up or make plans elsewhere during the time frame when the power will be out and to charge up their electronic devices beforehand.
The circulator pumps responsible for the heating system will not be operational at that time as well, and there will be no heat in any of the affected buildings.
In addition to the buildings, the lights at the football practice field, Meade Stadium, and the soccer field will not function at the time of the electrical repairs. The same goes for the respective parking lot lights of the Fine Arts building and Keaney Gymnasium.
The university has backup systems to ensure running water and sewage will remain fully functional.
The switch, which itself is owned by National Grid and not the University, has been closed since the failure of that central component since August of 2021, according to Bozikowski. As a result, electricity flowing through campus has to be suspended in order to make this repair.
There are two switches on either side of the high voltage line that is used to connect URI electricity to the National Grid power source, and the one is now faulty because the broken section is connected to the URI side.
National Grid will be the one to shut down the power campus-wide, but it will be university facility operations employees conducting the repair.
Before the date of March 16 was set, Bozikowski had to coordinate with each department on campus, as well as members of administration such as Provost Laura Beauvais and the Vice President of Administration and Finance Abigail Ryder, in order to confirm that there were no conflicts with the planned date of the outage.
The reason that the outage is scheduled for March is because extreme temperatures can cause pipes to burst during maintenance work, and because most of the student body will be home during it.
“In March there are warmer temperatures, and that provides us a better window to make the repair and not have buildings impacted by temperature extremes,” says Lamb.
Half of the university’s power comes from solar suppliers also within the National Grid distribution network, according to Bozikowski. However, URI spends about $10 million annually on electricity from National Grid, who continually supplies the 1,200 acre campus with 35,000 volts of electricity or 70,000,000 Kilowatt hours.
Bozikowski is responsible for most of the oversight and planning when it comes to facilities operations of this sort.
“We want students and professors and researchers to be able to prepare and take the proper precautions,” Bozikowski said, in reference to how early the Jan. 12 announcement came out.
Other campuses will not be impacted as the power grid in question only reaches the bounds of the Kingston campus.
The rain date for the outage, in the event of a need for delay, would come the day after, on March 17, and would be during the same timeframe.