Jan. 29, 2008 — A planned power outage in Westwood has been rescheduled from Monday, Jan. 28 to Monday, Feb. 11. Students who attend school in Westwood will be home that day celebrating the Lincoln’s Birthday holiday.

Dave Folce, the electrical operations manager at the Lassen Municipal Utility District, said the planned outage is expected to last about four hours — from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The outage is necessary so the publicly owned utility district can install a new transformer at the Westwood substation. A mobile substation on loan from the Western Area Power Association has handled the Westwood area’s power needs for nearly a year following the Feb. 8, 2007, transformer failure at the Westwood substation.

Folce said due to hazardous winter driving conditions, the California Highway Patrol has refused to grant a special permit to allow a 50-ton crane to travel from the valley to Westwood to lift a new three-phase transformer into place.

The power outage will occur when the LMUD crew disconnects the mobile substation and reconnects the new transformer.

“We’ll get the new transformer in position, get it all wired and then energize it the morning of the 11th,” Folce said.

The transformer takes power from LMUD’s 60-kilovolt line and steps the power down to 5kV.

“This is a preplanned outage,” Folce said, “and we try to leave ourselves plenty of time to get it done. If everything goes according to plan, we hope we have the power back on long before 1 p.m.”

For more information on the outage, call LMUD at 257-4174.