Members may occasionally receive a recorded message from United Power informing them of a “preplanned” outage in their area. You may be curious what a planned outage is and why the cooperative needs to perform them. Sometimes repairs must be made to crucial parts of the electric grid to maintain system reliability. Some repairs can be made without interrupting power, but others would not be possible or might be too dangerous for lineworkers while power is flowing.
Regular system upgrades are necessary for optimal performance. While the interruption of power may sound like an inconvenience, the short outage ensures greater long-term reliability.
The cooperative’s engineering and operations teams are constantly reviewing the system and identifying areas in need of improvement or where upgrades can minimize outages while increasing both reliability and security.
Aside from the safety of both our members and our crews, and better overall system performance, there are a few more things you should know about preplanned outages. When one of these outages is necessary, the cooperative makes upgrades that affect as few members as possible. Rarely do preplanned outages impact more than a handful of members. In rare instances when a larger number of members may be impacted, there will be more advanced notice. Preplanned outages are also scheduled for small windows — usually no more than five hours — when most members are away from home.
United Power also sends members prerecorded phone messages informing them of work happening in their area. It is important to differentiate these calls from preplanned outage notices. A notice of work in your area does not always mean you will experience a power interruption.
In order to receive notices about work in your area or preplanned outages, your contact information on file with the cooperative must be up to date. As new software becomes available, you may also have more options for how to receive important updates from United Power. However, any notice the co-op sends will be tied to the information on your account. If the information on your account, such as phone numbers and email addresses, is not current or is incorrect, you could be missing these important notices.
You can update your contact information using United Power’s free online account portal, SmartHub, or by calling a member services representative at 303-637-1300.