The campus-wide power outages that have occurred this semesterwill be eliminated after Sacramento State’s power system isrepaired and upgraded for $10,000 in mid-May.

Linda Hafar, the director of facilities and utilities, said thatafter a fire in Sac State’s electrical substation on Dec. 16,the campus has relied this semester on a less powerful electricitysource.

The substation is comprised of a Sac State and a SMUDcomponent.

Normally, Sac State receives its power from the Sac Stateequipment, but damages from the fire have forced the campus toreceive power through the SMUD component.

Daryn Ockey, the manager of building trades, said that normallySac State breaks down 69,000 volts from SMUD into usable componentsto distribute across campus.

Since the fire, Sac State’s electrical substation has hadthe capacity to break down and distribute only 12,000 volts.

“The lower voltage means the system is more susceptible topower outages,” Ockey said.

Ockey estimated that three or four power outages have occurredsince the fire.

Hafar said that since the fire, Sac State has receivedelectricity from a large substation in the Pocket area, whichprovides power for other communities and has also contributed tothe cause of the power outages.

“When people crash into power poles, or when birds flyinto transformers … it causes service to shut off,”Hafar said.

The SMUD substation that the campus is currently receiving powerfrom has a device called a “safety,” which shuts offpower when it detects any abnormalities.

When the campus received power from the Sac State component ofthe substation, power outages did not occur because that substationdoes not have the detection device.

Facilities management has scheduled a job-walk with contractorsconcerning the repairs for April 1.

Ockey said that the upgraded system would incorporate newtechnology to prevent future power outages.

“We’re sensitive to the issues the campus facesbecause of the power outages,” Ockey said. “We’retrying to repair it as quickly as possible, but we also want tomake sure that we don’t have these same problems in thefuture.”