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Pulling the plug Darrell Greer Northern News Services Published Wednesday, October 5, 2011
RCMP Sgt. Louis Jenvenne said the night was a normal one for Rankin officers, despite the total blackness the community was enveloped in. He said the only precautions the detachment took were to ensure its generator was functioning properly, and to place its off-duty officers on call with a hard-line phone that works during a power outage. "My only concern was if they had to do an eight-hour shutdown, it probably should have been done during the daytime," said Jenvenne. "I don't know if they had a consultation meeting I missed, or if there was a specific reason for doing it during those hours, but, personally, I would rather have seen it done during the day." Qulliq Energy Corp. (QEC) director of engineering Stephen Kerr said work done at the Rankin plant between Sept. 23-26 was to relocate some sections of Motor Control Centre (MCC) cells, which are key components for the operation and control of certain systems and devices within the power plant. He said a plant outage was required to safely relocate the sections of MCC. "The sections of MCC had to be relocated because they were too close to the recently-installed new genset," said Kerr. "The MCC cells could not be relocated as part of that work due to timing (winter months). "The cells need a minimum clearance of one metre around the equipment and, with the installation of the new, much larger genset in the existing building, the clearance was less than one metre. "It impacted ingress/egress around the genset and to other parts of the power plant, which created a safety hazard for employees." Kerr said the non-compliance issue was noted when the genset was commissioned in February of 2011, and a plan was put in place to address the issue. He said the work was scheduled to take place as part of the genset replacement project in February, but, due to delays in material delivery and contractor co-ordination, it was deferred until the weather was more accommodating for an extended outage. "The deficiency did not impact public safety in any way. "This was the only time schedules could be co-ordinated between the electrical contractor and QEC engineering and operations personnel, while still trying to minimize impact on customers. "There's no real good time to undertake this work, as it impacted the entire community, however there was a strong desire to get it completed prior to cold weather arriving. "Otherwise, the work would be deferred for another 10 or 11 months."
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