Power restored to most Algonquin College buildings after major outage

Power has been restored to all but four buildings at Algonquin College's Ottawa campus after a wide-scale outage Friday afternoon.

All regular programs and services were suspended Saturday, other than those at the Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence (ACCE) buliding, until further notice. Some of the school's employees were advised not to come to campus.

Power was restored Friday night to the college's residence. By 8:15 p.m. Saturday, only buildings T, N, P and S remained without power, Algonquin College said in a statement.

However, the college said it still lacked sufficient power to run the main chiller that keeps its buildings cool — so while the lights, computers and washrooms in many buildings were now working, the air conditioning remained offline.

Full power expected for Monday

The college said it couldn't pinpoint when power would be fully restored, but was "working on the assumption that [the campus] will be near full power with adequate climate control/air conditioning by Monday morning."

Programs and services outside the ACCE building will remain suspended on Sunday, the college said.

The college says the power outage was caused by a fault in the conductors running from Woodroffe Avenue and College Avenue to the central plant.

Smoke was detected on an electrical switch in one of the college's buildings. As a precaution, power was cut to parts of the campus to allow an investigation into the source of the smoke.