Many buildings on Centennial Campus will be without power on Saturday, March 31, due to facility upgrades. The electricity, steam and chilled water outage will allow workers to safely install new connections at the Centennial Campus substation, which distributes electricity to many buildings on Centennial Campus.

“This outage is necessary for the continuation of several major energy grid enhancement projects on Centennial Campus,” said Allen Boyette, senior director for Energy Systems. “When complete, these projects will improve the reliability, efficiency and capacity of the campus energy grid.”

Beginning the morning of March 31, buildings impacted by the outage will be without electricity for approximately eight hours and without steam and chilled water for approximately 16 hours. The outage will also limit internet access on Centennial Campus. The Facilities division expects all service to be restored by 9:30 p.m.

A list of Centennial Campus buildings, including how each is impacted by the outage, is available online.

Should weather or other circumstances prevent work from being performed March 31, the backup date for the outage is Sunday, April 15. These dates were selected after several months of communication with key building occupants, contractors and Duke Energy.

“While we recognize there is not one day that will suit all needs, we feel these two dates will have the least impact to campus,” said Cameron Smith, senior director for Capital Project Management.

Town Hall meetings are being held to gather information about the impact of the outage. The meetings are scheduled for 9–10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 5, and 3–4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 9, in Hunt Library Room 4106.

Questions or concerns can also be directed to your building’s facilities coordinators. A final outage notification with more details will be distributed in late January.

This post was originally published in NC State News.