New generators come online with planned outage Sunday

The city of Luverne is alerting residents and businesses of a planned power outage and sounding of civil defense sirens this weekend.
The outage will be at 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2, in order to bring on line the city’s new 3 MW Caterpillar generators installed at the Electrical Power Plant earlier this year. 
According to Luverne City Administrator John Call, the goal of the generator project is to have back-up power for the city in the event it is cut off from transmission lines that carry power into the city.
“These disaster events are usually caused by ice storms, tornados, straight line winds or possibly some type of disaster within the electrical grid system,” Call said.
“The generators need to be tested in a real time situation to make sure that they are ready when called upon in the case of a real disaster.”
City electric utilities staff will test the system with the assistance of engineers, electrical technicians, and representatives from Caterpillar that will be on-site working with Missouri River Energy Services to make sure transition goes smoothly. 
During the 7 p.m. test Sunday, Luverne electricity customers will experience a short electrical outage lasting approximately 30 seconds up to 2 minutes. 
At that time, the generators will start and proceed to carry the load for approximately one hour.
At the conclusion of the generator testing, the civil defense sirens will be activated to let the public know that the testing period is over and that the city is back on the normal electrical grid. 
Call said the city will do what it can to make sure that all residents and businesses are aware of Sunday’s short power outage so that they can plan accordingly. 
“The City of Luverne appreciates your patience as the test is required to commission the newly installed generators,” Call said. “With the new generators in service, the city has increased reliability for all of our electricity customers.”
 He said questions can be directed to City Hall at 507-449-2388.