My power “blinked.” What happened?

Blinks are created when a breaker, or switch, opens along any portion of the power system. The breaker usually opens because of a large, quick rise of electrical current. This large rise, called a fault condition, can occur when a tree branch touches a line, a small animal climbs on a switch or lines, lightning strikes or a wire breaks. When this happens, a relay senses the fault and tells the recloser to open, preventing the flow of power to the problem site. After opening, the recloser quickly closes. The brief delay, which allows the fault to clear, usually lasts less than 2 seconds. If the fault is temporary, every home or business that receives electricity off that power line has just experienced a blink. The recloser has done its job to prevent a longer outage.

CoServ works hard to make our electric system as reliable as possible. We also employ proactive methods such as tree trimming and installing animal deterrents.

You can reduce the frustration of blinks by using an alarm clock equipped with a battery backup or installing a whole-home surge protector. If you work from home and use a desktop computer, a blink may cause your computer to reboot, and you may lose unsaved data on the computer. An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on your computer can help prevent information loss. The UPS incorporates surge suppression technology with a battery backup and provides you some time to save whatever you were working on and exit your computer properly.

CoServ operates an active system maintenance program and actively investigates blinks when they occur to prevent them from causing larger problems in the future. Even though blinks will never disappear from our electrical energy delivery system, by working together we can minimize effects of the interruptions and the frequency with which they occur.