Wondering what the generators behind Wadsworth Hall are powering? They power the east half of Wadsworth Hall, which has been depending on generators as its power source since Fall Break due to a failing transformer. During the break, electricians, in coordination with generator supplier Aggreko, switched the building over to the generators and off the main MTU power supply. Residential Living (Housing) notified all students living on campus of this outage on Oct. 16.
Matt Weekly, Executive Director of Residential Living, said Housing wants to have a single form of communication to reduce the amount of rumors and speculation going around in regards to the project. He continued saying that within a week of finding the issue, facilities staff verified the issue with outside consultation, received the temporary generators, and started an order for a replacement transformer. The current transformer was installed in 2004 and has a normal life span of 20 to 30 years.
Dan Liebau, Facilities Site Engineer for Michigan Tech Facilities, said maintenance staff found the issue while performing preventative maintenance checks. Staff noticed abnormalities and brought it to the attention of the building managers. Both Liebau and Samantha Butkovich, Facilities Manager, praise their staff for their awareness, Lidebau said, “The main thing we want to avoid is a prolonged outage,”
Facilities say there are no special considerations needed for energy usage during the time the generators are being used. They have been able to switch some of the power over to other supplies to reduce the load on the generators; one of the generators can power everything if needed.
Only one outage has been seen with the system as of publication. Dan says the outage was due to an issue with the fuel system and that it has been resolved. He notes that the generators will need to be shut down after 25 days of use to perform maintenance on the systems.
The time frame for the installation of the new transformer is undetermined due to the amount of effort and equipment needed to remove the old part.
