Blinking lights and brief power interruptions are frustrating. Momentary power interruptions or "blinking lights" are most often caused by uncontrollable circumstances. Wind, trees, lightning, birds, animals, equipment failure and humans can all disrupt the normal flow of electricity both momentarily and longer. Trying to find the exact cause of the blinks sometimes resembles trying to find the needle in the haystack, which equally frustrates the line crew.
While blinks can be annoying, they show that an electrical system is working exactly as designed. When a breaker in your house or business senses a power problem, the breaker trips and power flow stops until someone resets the breaker. Breakers on Access Energy Cooperative’s power lines are designed to sense a problem on the lines, stop power flow momentarily and then automatically reset – potentially avoiding a much longer outage.
Before digital clocks and computers, blinks oftentimes went unnoticed. In today’s world, flashing digital displays and loss of computer data can be a disruption in our lives. Access Energy Cooperative member-owners need to protect computers and other sensitive electronic equipment by buying and using uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. These relatively simple and inexpensive measures will go a long way towards increasing power reliability and protecting fallout from blinks.
Members also need to notify the cooperative when blinking light problems repeatedly occur. Then, be patient and give line crews a chance to find and correct the problem. We all want the same thing – high quality, reliable electric service.