Campus & community, Campus news

UC Berkeley operating with limited power during weekend outage

By Public Affairs

For the latest information, please visit the Berkeley News homepage .

Marc Fisher, UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor for administration, and Alicia Johnson, director of emergency management, issued the following message on Saturday at 3:51 p.m. A more recent story can be found on the Berkeley News homepage .

We are writing with an update on the anticipated PG&E power outage and its impact on our campus.

Additional resources

Information for students, researchers and Berkeley residents can be found at the bottom of this post.

The campus is doing well in achieving our goals to use the power we have available to protect life safety, support our students, prevent catastrophic losses of research assets and allow for a limited number of outdoor public engagements.

Transfer from PG&E to limited power from campus co-generation plant

Facilities Services staff monitored the load on the central plant throughout the day to determine the safest time for separating the campus high voltage grid from PG&E. The campus moved to solely cogeneration power late this afternoon. As a reminder, it is essential that we keep our power demands down while we are relying on this energy source since excessive load could cause the plant to trip and the campus would lose all power. UCPD officers are clearing buildings in order to keep energy demands down. Those exiting the campus should power down all electronics and turn off lighting. We remind you to avoid campus for the duration of the power outage.

PG&E will open a resource center on Sunday for the general community in the south parking lot on the Clark Kerr Campus. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. People can obtain water, snacks, flashlights and LED lights, charge phones and get up-to-date information on outages.

Academics

We will advise the campus about Monday classes on Sunday morning. A message will be sent soon to all instructors with advice on how to create digital content which can be used in coming weeks to make up for missed instruction where appropriate.

Research

The research enterprise is in reduced activity but stable power mode at this time. Updates for researchers can be found here .

City of Berkeley

For employees and students who live in Berkeley, please refer to the city’s site that is providing updates on the power outage . People are welcome to go to city libraries to charge computers and mobile phones.

Student residence and dining facilities

All residence halls will retain power during this outage. All dining facilities will remain open. Updates for students can be found here .

Students with disabilities and/or medical needs

Students may charge medical equipment or a medical device at the Tang Center between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. today and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, and at Unit 3 on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Students may also refrigerate medications at the Tang Center.

Finally, we are continuing to monitor the air quality index and will advise the campus community as appropriate.

Please refer to Berkeley News for updates and more specific information.

Thank you for your cooperation during this challenging time.

Additional resources