Frequently Asked Questions
The “blinks” we experience are generally caused by a fault on the Midwest Energy system supply to Sterling. This could be caused by a tree limb falling across the lines during high winds, or a vehicle striking a power pole. Birds and rodents have also been known to cause these faults. Actually, it is a safety relay on the system briefly shutting off the supply in reaction to a perceived fault. During the brief “outage”, the fault will hopefully have had time to clear and power can be restored. The safety relay is there to immediately remove power if the fault doesn’t clear. This would become our city-wide outage and we will be responding accordingly. We will generate the city power until MWE crews have time to locate and correct the problem.