Glen Vienneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 02/00) - High cost is always a factor when the power goes out.

"Every minute it's off, it's costing us money, and costing the businesses in town a bit more money," said Norm McBride, operations superintendent for the NWT Power Corp.

For the corporation, the cost is between $2,500-$3,000 for each hour its capital region customers aren't using the 32 megawatts of electricity being generated by the Snare Hydro System, he said.

The Snare system provides power for Yellowknife, Rae and Dettah.

Cost of repairing the problem depends on the extent of damage.

Outages also affect businesses and large industries, such as a mine site where the entire operation is shut down until the power is restored.

For Peggy Ramsay, manager of the A&W in Yellowknife, it means shutting down the entire operation, and they have no back-up power.

"You lose business for the length of time that it's out," said Ramsay.

But not all businesses lose money when they lose power.

The manager of the Tli Cho Motel in Rae said when the power goes out, the worst thing for their business is that it inconveniences customers.

"We hadn't had a problem with it so far," said manager Ruby Brissett, adding that her husband, who manages a local clock store, is obviously affected by power loss.