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Failed gizmo caused outage

Failed gizmo caused outage Most of the territory woke up to blinking clocks Tuesday after the power went out for a few early morning hours. Power went out to almost all of the grid, except for the Village of Mayo and Keno, at about 3 a.m.

Most of the territory woke up to blinking clocks Tuesday after the power went out for a few early morning hours.

Power went out to almost all of the grid, except for the Village of Mayo and Keno, at about 3 a.m., Yukon Energy’s spokesperson Janet Patterson confirmed.

Most communities had their lights back on by 5 a.m. Minto Mine was connected at 5:50 a.m. Pelly Crossing, the last community to have the power restored, was back online at 7:20 a.m.

The cause was traced to the largest hydro unit in Whitehorse.

The programmable logic controller of hydro unit number four failed. Patterson said the controller “is essentially a sophisticated computer and the main brain of the hydro unit.”

The failure caused damage to other equipment. Patterson said staff are still investigating the damage.

It could be several days before the damaged unit is back in service.

In the meantime, Patterson said, there is enough power coming from other available units in Whitehorse, Mayo and Aishihik.

(Ashley Joannou)