Trustees Approve Bid For Backup Generator

The East Central College Board of Trustees accepted a bid from PB Electric, Sullivan, for the installation of an emergency generator system on the colleges main campus.

PB Electric was the low bidder, with a bid of $71,000.

The generator package is to enable the campus to provide continuous power during an outage to Internet, email, the computer network, servers and phone infrastructure.

One thing that is happening right now, is that when we have a major power failure, all communications go off-line we can not get to the outside world, said Phil Pena, vice president of finance and administration. In our society, we use the Internet for everything.

The outages prevent the college from notifying the community the status of the campus and its services, hampers communication to service providers and is hard on the computer, network and phone equipment, Pena said.

The generator is a part of the colleges emergency communications plan. It will power the colleges server room.

Included in the bid is the installation of a separate HVAC system so if temperatures rise during a power outage the equipment doesnt automatically shut down.

The Internet connection will be switched to natural gas power generators so there will not be any future communication outages.

Included in the bid is a 100 kVA (kilovolt-ampere) Kohler natural gas powered generator, an automatic transfer switch, two server room ceiling mounted backup A/C units rated at 2.5 tons each, emergency power for the Buescher Hall telecommunications closet, a one-year warranty on parts and labor and a five-year maintenance agreement on all parts, material and installation labor.

Other bids were received from Casco Electric, Beaufort, $85,780; and Streib Electric, St. Louis, $89,319.

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Trustees Approve Bid For Backup Generator