University Park, Pa. -- Penn State's University Park campus will be participating in a regional emergency electricity load reduction test from 3 to 4 p.m. today (Thursday, June 18). All University Park employees and students are asked to turn off all unnecessary lighting, office equipment, coffee pots, dehumidifiers and air conditioning under individual control. All safety lighting and equipment is exempt and should remain on throughout the test.
This test event will demonstrate Penn State’s capability to reduce our electricity load when called upon during national or regional power emergencies. The Interruptible Load for Reliability (ILR) program is an emergency "capacity" program in which participants pledge to reduce their load by a specified amount. The objective of the ILR program is to cost effectively protect the day-to-day reliability of the regional grid that Penn State relies upon.
Physical Plant employees will be working behind the scenes to reduce the overall electrical load. Employees may notice that some indoor temperatures have been adjusted upward by 2 degrees. This will only happen in spaces identified by facility coordinators for participation in this test. Most other initiatives will be transparent. The test will not cause any outages or disruption of normal electrical services.
Everyone is asked to fully cooperate by turning off all unnecessary electrical loads during this one-hour test. For further information, please contact Mike Prinkey at (814) 863-4091 or mip103@psu.edu or Paul Ruskin at (814) 863-9620 or pdr2@psu.edu.