This weekend’s scheduled power outage on the Texas Wesleyan campus is the result of the university’s recently installed combined heat and power plant, according to a campus official.

Brian Franks, executive director of Facilities and Development Operations, wrote in an email Thursday that this outage is due to the Oncor Electric Delivery Co. disconnecting the feed to Wesleyan’s main electric meter in order to ensure worker safety.

“Although we strive to maintain continuous utility services across campus, in the event where improvements need to be performed on the utility distribution systems,” Franks wrote, “disconnecting the power is the only way we can truly insure the safety of the service technician who is performing the repairs/improvements.”

Saturday’s outage was originally scheduled for Feb. 13, Franks wrote. Last semester there were two outages. There was also an unscheduled power outage on Feb. 11.

That outage was tied to the “age of utility infrastructure that provides power to the university,” Franks wrote.

“One is not a lot when you take this into consideration,” he wrote.

Franks wrote that there have been no complaints sent to his office.

“All scheduled power interruptions have been communicated from the Service Desk prior to the outage,” he wrote.

Brandon Flowers, a user support specialist/service desk analyst, said that the power outage has not negatively impacted Wesleyan, other than causing inconvenience for some professors and staff. No data has been lost, but some professors have not been able to access their work computers from home.

Anne-Charlotte Camille Salin, a sophomore biochemistry major and campus resident, wrote in an e-mail that the power outages have had little to no effect to her.

“Basically, since the planned power outages always happen during the night, on the weekend, I am not affected by them,” Salin wrote.