ATHENS UTILITIES BOARD
PLANS ENGLEWOOD POWER OUTAGE

ATHENS, Tenn. - The Athens Utilities Board (AUB) will initiate a planned electric power outage beginning at midnight on Saturday, April 13, -barring extreme weather-that will affect all Englewood customers.

The outage is necessary so that AUB crews can install equipment as part of the overall upgrade of the Englewood substation. The outage should last approximately two hours.

The work Saturday will enable AUB to put a new substation breaker in service in the near future. “This is one step in our overall larger effort to upgrade the Englewood system,” said AUB spokesman Wayne Scarbrough. “We’re spending more than a million dollars upgrading the Englewood system with these substation upgrades and the new transmission line from North Athens to Englewood. These short outages are a necessary evil in getting the work safely accomplished.”

The addition of the new breaker will enhance the reliability of the electrical load at the Englewood substation, especially during times of power interruptions due to damaged lines, damaged transformers, or other system components, said AUB Power Superintendent Nick Fortson.

“Having the new breaker operable will minimize the number of people affected by unplanned outages, such as those caused by Mother Nature,” Fortson said. “For instance, if a line is damaged on one part of the distribution system, the new breaker will allow us to segment the load and feed power in a variety of ways to keep customers in other parts of the system fully served with power.”

Fortson said that the work this weekend serves a forward-looking purpose as well. “Not only will this serve our current Englewood customers more efficiently, it also will help support the growing demand on the Englewood system, particularly the growth associated up and down Highway 411,” he said.

In the coming weeks, another planned outage will take place in Englewood when final connections at the substation are made as part of an overall upgrade to the Englewood system.