SaskPower to spend $9 million upgrading Regina's downtown grid

SaskPower is ready to go ahead with its latest upgrades to Regina's electrical infrastructure.

The Crown corporation will spend about $9 million "to ensure continued reliability" in the downtown electrical grid, which it said is aging and needs replacement. The work being done in the downtown will replace or remove underground cables and duct banks. 

There will be some "planned outages" during the work, said Scott McGregor, SaskPower's media relations officer. 

"One of the good things that we're doing this year is that all of our work is being co-ordinated with other Crowns as well as the city of Regina," said McGregor, "so that we maintain, we keep the amount of impacting disruptions through traffic or anything to a very minimum."

SaskPower said it will communicate planned outages ahead of time.

During the last few years, as the electrical grid infrastructure has come to its end of life, some businesses and workers have felt the impact of unplanned outages.

Maya Mcleod works downtown as the front of house manager at Rooftop Bar and Grill. She's had personal experience with these outages and remembers one shift vividly.

"We kind of just stopped service at that point, if it stays with the power out," said Mcleod. "I remember one day we had to actually go home, like the employees left, and the boss, because we stayed for like an hour, almost two hours, my boss just sent us all home."

When the power goes out, it can cause problems such as losing access to the payment system, she said.

"We don't have a backup," Mcleod said. "So, once the power is out, we have no way of getting our bills, getting payments to customers [or] ringing in anything."

Mcleod said she's glad repairs are being done in the area and she hopes she won't have to miss out on work again.

During the last five years, SaskPower has spent $44 million upgrading dying infrastructure in central Regina. 

Construction is expected to take place on Saskatchewan Drive, 11th Avenue, McIntyre Street and the alley north of Victoria Avenue. 

The projects will take until the end of December to be completed.