Off the Grid

On Wednesday June 29th Penn Manor will be off the electrical grid between 2:45 PM and 4:00 PM.  During that time, the district will be conducting a mandatory test for ClearChoice Energy in which we will curtail all power usage across the district. The test is part of a demand response energy program where the district receives financial incentives in exchange for energy usage curtailments during peak consumption times.

Due to a recent serious lightening strike, generators servicing our main data closets are damaged. Replacement parts have not yet arrived. In light of this unexpected problem, and due to the fact that the entire district will be dark for over an hour, all district servers will be shutdown during the test. While we could theoretically maintain a few core network services via battery backup for part of the blackout, I am choosing to play it safe and institute a full shutdown.

The outage will leave us without computers, web servers, email access, air conditioning and lights.  All web-based services such as the district website, blogs, Moodle and e-mail will be offline during the test. District phones will also be offline.

Phone and web services will begin returning after the test concludes at 4PM. During the blackout, I anticipate an opportunity to reflect on what my career would be like in a world devoid of electricity!

 


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