February 23, 2009

Three separate electrical problems caused the power outage that struck four California State University, Fresno buildings on Sunday.

A partial resolution achieved early Tuesday morning restored power to two buildings the Kremen Education Building and the Madden Library. University crews hope to have the power back on later this week in the Smittcamp Alumni house and the Satellite Student Union.

Robert Boyd, associate vice president for Facilities Management, said that generally, the failures are related to aging equipment.

“We found defects in two high-voltage cables and a broken high-voltage ‘boot’ connection where two cables come together,” said Boyd.

“Our cabling is 35 to 40 years old in many areas of the campus. With age, stress and fatigue, it breaks down. Everything has a finite life,” he said.

He added that the outage was not directly related to the opening of the Madden Library last week.

Boyd said crews isolated the Kremen Building and the Library from the problem area and re-energized the feeder line, restoring power by about 4 a.m. Tuesday.

Now Boyd is preparing a list of parts needed to repair the equipment, but that won’t be easy because the parts are old and difficult to find.

Vice President for Administration Cynthia Teniente-Matson said this week’s power failure underscores the importance of securing state funding for a campuswide infrastructure upgrade project – including additional electric feeder capacity. Fresno State has requested the funding each of the past last five years.

Matson said the $105 million project would update and add capacity for electricity, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, domestic water, fire alarms, sanitary sewers, natural gas lines and other infrastructure needs.