Maintenance work leaves UnB without power this Wednesday.
The North ICC and the Central Library were left in the dark; the substation that supplies both locations had to be shut down; maintenance ends this afternoon.
UnB Agency - The UnB City Hall will begin this Wednesday morning (28) the replacement of the two transformers in the north wing of the Central Institute of Sciences (ICC) that presented defects in the early afternoon yesterday. The work will begin at 7 am and should extend until the end of the afternoon. Between 8 am and 18 pm, the power will be cut off in the north wing of the ICC, in the Central Library building and in the Faculty of Computer Science and in the Institute of Physics.
According to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, José Américo Garcia, holding classes in these locations will be at the discretion of each professor. "They can choose different teaching methodologies or suspend classes if there is no other alternative," he said. The Library will remain closed.
“Our expectation is that everything will be back to normal by the end of the afternoon, but we cannot guarantee that evening classes will be able to proceed normally,” stated Mayor Cassiano Sobrinho. The power outages were announced on Monday through InfoUnB (see below).
"Unfortunately, the power outage is unavoidable. The solution is temporary, and we will make an emergency purchase of new transformers, which should be finalized in 20 days," stated the Dean of Administration, Eduardo Raupp. "Throughout the day, we will provide more information about the situation regarding evening courses."
Maintenance
The University of Brasília (UnB) already had two spare devices for transmitting electrical power. The replacement is a temporary measure to normalize the constant power outages that occurred again today.
In a statement addressed to the UnB community early Tuesday morning, Mayor Francisco Cassiano Sobrinho explained that "it was necessary to rearrange the electrical load in order to allow the minimally adequate functioning of the entire ICC Norte building. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to disconnect the loads coming from the BCE, FCI, and Rádio UnB." The statement also requested that ICC Norte users avoid turning on air conditioners and high-power appliances.
Cause
According to the city's electrical coordinator, Robson Silva, the overload on the appliances was a result of the improper installation of air conditioning units. "Many units were installed independently, without the city's knowledge," he stated. A study conducted by the city in 2010 determined that it would be necessary to build a power substation to supply the Central Library.
The head of the Computer Science department (CIC), Priscila Barreto, said that today was "terrible." Evening classes were canceled because the CIC is next to the substation and the smell of burning is very strong. "The technicians who came here yesterday said that if they had arrived 15 minutes later, the transformers would have caught fire," she reported.
According to Priscila, the computer classes take place in the basement of the ICC Norte building, where there is no ventilation. “Without being able to use the air conditioning, there are no conditions for holding classes. Furthermore, since we don't have a forecast, we have to cancel classes at the last minute, without notifying the students in advance. We can't risk their safety,” she said.