KENSINGTON, P.E.I. — With post-tropical storm Dorian fresh in their memories and winter storms on the horizon, Kensington officials are taking steps to ensure the town doesn’t lose power for an extended period of time in the near future.
For almost a year, the Town of Kensington has been working to establish a reception/warming station. Now it’s in the final stages thanks to approval to take one of the municipality’s existing generators and repurposing it to work at a permanent location.
At a recent meeting, council directed Chief Administrative Officer Geoff Baker to seek price quotes on modifying the portable generator that serves as emergency power for the municipality’s well field, in order to serve as a permanent power source at the Murray Christian Centre.
“It’s something we’ve been working on since last year. We had included the project in our Gas Tax Funding application. But we were informed that the project isn’t fundable under the gas tax,” said Baker.
At the same time, the town included its infrastructure project on the well field on the application – a project that falls under the gas tax funding. This included securing a permanent power source to act as an emergency power source if the well field were to lose power.
“Because of this, we were able to take the existing generator from the well field, that we purchased 10 years ago, and modify it to work at the Murray Centre. The timing really aligned,” Baker said.
Baker expects the modifications on the generator to cost about $20,000 to $25,000. It was a cost council didn’t anticipate, but was nonetheless prepared for when it outlined its 2019 capital budget.
Baker didn’t know the specifics of the changes, but said the generator is going to be changed from a three-phase generator to single-phase. Other costs incurred will include the removal and installation of the generator at the centre, along with other technical changes and modifications.
“We were hoping we’d be able to get it funded through gas tax, but we did earmark about $50,000 in the budget for the project.”
While the projects aren’t unfolding at the same time, Baker said it was a balance of risks.
“We’ve not had to use the well field generator in the 10 years we’ve had it. We have significant storage in our water tower that would probably last about four to five days in the case of a power outage. In the meantime, we do have the funds to bring in a portable generator if we were to need one before the well field project is finished.”
Mayor Rowan Caseley said having a reception/warming centre at the Murray Centre will provide a necessary resource in the town.
“With winter approaching, the need for an emergency location is more time-sensitive. And while the initial plan had been to establish a warming centre for winter, when ... Dorian came through, it established the need for a reception area as well is people needed to come in to recharge their devices, get a meal or two or a cup of tea, and do what they need to do.”
Thanks to Dorian, the town lost power for several days. In November 2018, a winter storm knocked out power in the community for a number of days – starting the first discussions about an emergency centre.
“We identified it as a need last year. Our target was to have it established by early November this year, now we’re nearing the end and we hope to have it up and running before the next big storm. It will serve as an important resource year-round.”
