UCD was submerged into darkness on Friday 1st November following a power cut to the Belfield campus and the surrounding area. The cut was caused by a fault on high voltage transformer in the Mount Merrion substation, shop according to a spokesperson from the ESB.
The power cut lasted for approximately two hours from 4pm until power was eventually restored at 6.05pm. Due to the lack of electricity many services around campus were forced to close, see these included the Student Desk which closed early and the James Joyce Library which had to close for the rest of the evening.
Students were also greatly affected by the power outage, UCD’s student run radio station, Belfield FM, were forced to put a halt to operations following the power cut. “The power outage in UCD stopped Belfield FM right in its tracks as we can’t do anything without electricity. However as there was nothing student centre staff could do to prevent it, we can’t really complain as they were very helpful with regards to our studio equipment.” Station Manager, Adam Turner, told the College Tribune.
Students who were busy working in UCD at the time were also affected. 4th year Zoology student Fiona Gough was running experiments, as part of her thesis, at the time of the power cut. “Everything was going well until the electricity in the building went while I was running additional experiments. As I was using a dissecting microscope which requires electricity for light and a magnetic stirrer it meant I couldn’t continue with my analysis.” Gough told the College Tribune. “To top it all off the lab began to flood as the pumps in the large fish tanks stopped working. As inconvenient as it was trying to clean out the tanks in the dark, not being able to finish running my experiments means extra work in the coming weeks and less accurate results for that experimental run.” she also added.
