Heat wave prompts cancellation of planned power outage in South Jordan

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SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — Residents in the Daybreak neighborhood said they were relieved that a planned power outage for Tuesday evening had been postponed.

Rocky Mountain Power had planned to cut electricity to nearly 550 homes from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. so that crews could complete maintenance work.

“How are people going to get their kids and their homework all done or ready for school the next day with no power? It’s really difficult,” said Daybreak resident Dafne Arballo about the now-canceled outage.

Homeowners were worried about losing power—and air conditioning—during the hottest time of the day.

Rocky Mountain Power customers concerned over planned outages during heatwave

“We don’t have very much shade on our house, to begin with, so it was just going to be scorching hot, and we were not really looking forward to that at all,” Arballo said.

Rocky Mountain Power reversed course and alerted affected customers on Friday that the outage was canceled and would be rescheduled for a later date.

“We’re going to push it into next week, early next week when temperatures are a little cooler,” said Tiffany Erickson, the utility’s spokesperson.

Erickson said they made the decision because of the high temperatures and how many people are working from home.

“It’s just really figuring out that balance and how to work with both needs: our system’s needs as well as our customers’ needs,” she said.

Erickson said that the South Jordan repair project is still critical preventative maintenance work. If they wait too long, it could set the stage for equipment to fail.

“We’re looking at an outage that would take 300 folks out for a few hours as opposed to 3,000 when something bigger breaks,” Erickson said.

While the extreme heat in the region has California warning residents of possible blackouts, Erickson said Rocky Mountain Power is not expecting any power supply or system capacity issues in Utah.

California facing chance of blackouts amid brutal heat wave

“We do extensive planning every single year to make sure that we foresee these events and that we’re prepared and that we have adequate system resources for these high-heat events,” she explained.

Even though Utah is not expecting any blackouts, customers can still help conserve electricity by keeping the air conditioning at 78 degrees and waiting to use large appliances until nighttime.