mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
Medicine Hat College is set to receive a new electrical substation, paid for in full by the province.
According to a release put out by the government, the school’s electrical substation is nearing the end of its lifespan.
The work will help avoid unplanned power outages and disruptions to daily campus life. It will also ensure that staff and students have a dependable power supply.
“This is great news,” said executive director of facilities and information technology Chuck Payne. “This is really good news for the college and it will help us with a major project that is much needed.”
The MHC project is part of the more than $10 billion spending in the province’s recovery plan.
“Alberta’s Recovery Plan is an ambitious plan to build, diversify and create jobs. This additional funding will create immediate jobs in the Medicine Hat area and help sustain the high-quality campus experiences Medicine Hat College is known for,” said Demetrios Nicolaides, minister of advanced education.
The project will create around five new jobs in the Medicine Hat region, according to the release.
Payne says the school’s substation is from the 1970s.
“It was put in during the original build of the campus – around 1971,” he said. “It’s 50 years old, it’s done its service and we’re really looking forward to it being replaced.”
Payne has been with the college for more than 20 years and says this power supply is vital for the entire campus.
“If this went down, the entire campus would go down,” he said. “It’s not like we’d have small power outages, we’d be completely down until this got fixed.
“The equipment is aging and now is a good time to have it replaced, so we don’t run into issues down the road.”
Early stages of work on the project have begun. Infrastructure work will begin during the school year. In the spring, work will begin on replacing the switch gear and its building.
