Many Summerside homes face 5-hour blackout overnight

Many Summerside residents will be in the dark again overnight Wednesday due to a scheduled power outage from 1 to 6 a.m. AT.

This comes after a series of power challenges the city has faced over the past two weeks due to a failure at Maritime Electric's Sherbrooke substation. 

"This outage is necessary for Maritime Electric to connect Summerside to its mobile transfer unit at the Sherbrooke Substation, an interim solution to help stabilize the city's power grid," the City of Summerside said in a news release Tuesday. 

Not all Summerside residents will be affected by the outage, just homes connected to circuits 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 11. People can find out which power circuit they are on by checking this map: Electrical-Circuit-Map

Those seven circuits were selected to maximize the power availability for Summerside residents, the news release said. 

Turbulent month for Summerside power

For much of this month, Summerside has experienced challenges with its electricity that the rest of the province has avoided. That is because the municipality owns its own utility, Summerside Electric.

How does P.E.I.'s electrical grid even work? CBC Explains

13 days ago

Duration 3:07

With recent outages shining a light on the fact that the P.E.I. electrical grid is nearing capacity, you may be wondering how the Island gets power in the first place — or what the difference is between Summerside Electric and Maritime Electric. Here's a breakdown from CBC's Cody MacKay.

A Maritime Electric transformer was damaged at its Sherbrooke substation earlier this month, leaving the Island's power supply unstable and limiting the amount of power Summerside Electric could access.

Summerside Electric generates most of its power through wind and solar farms, as well as large diesel generators, but must still buy a portion of its power from New Brunswick Power. 

That power is sent to the Island by means of underwater cables beneath the Northumberland Strait. It then has to be sent to Summerside using Maritime Electric's transmission grid.