Contact: Allison Matthews
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The Starkville campus of Mississippi State University will be impacted by a second and final power outage planned by the university's public utility providers as part of a $20 million project aimed at enhancing reliability and capacity.
The Starkville Electric Department, in conjunction with the Tennessee Valley Authority, announced they anticipate the city-wide power outage on Sunday, June 23 to last from 12:01 a.m. to 5 a.m.
"These outages are necessary because TVA is nearing completion of a major transmission project that will have positive impacts on both our city and the surrounding area," Terry N. Kemp, SED general manager said in a recent letter to customers. "The final stages of this $20 million project will be connection to the Starkville Electric primary substation."
When complete, the project will provide an additional 161,000 volt electrical feed into the Starkville system.
J.D. Hardy, MSU's mechanical and energy engineer, said that university officials have met to address the possible impacts of the outage and have formulated a plan to be "proactive" in working to minimize negative impacts.
"MSU Campus Services personnel will be doing everything feasible to minimize the effects of the outage on the campus," said Hardy. "Everyone is encouraged to make all preparations they deem necessary ahead of the planned outage."
Campus Services used the previous planned outage on May 19 as an opportunity to test the "black start" capabilities of the university's power generation plant. MSU Director of University Relations Sid Salter said the test yielded successful results.
Salter said that Starkville Electric intends to keep the power to the MSU Research Park online during the outage, but that the main campus--including the College of Veterinary Medicine--would be impacted.
"All 4-County Electric Power Association customers" including North Farm and South Farm on the MSU campus" should not be impacted by the outage," said Salter. "The university has utilized this period of advance notice of the planned outage to do everything possible to ensure that redundancies and generators protect research projects."
For more information, contact Starkville Electric at 662-323-3133 or the MSU Office of University Relations at 662-325-7454 or 601-507-8004.
For more information about Mississippi State University, visit www.msstate.edu.