Power at the Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach was affected from 9 p.m. on Wednesday until 2:30 Thursday morning.

Manitoba Hydro spokesperson Bruce Owen says it was a planned power outage as part of a 20-year project to inject silicon around the underground cables and extend their life by up to 40 years.

"When there are faults, particularly underground faults, they're obviously harder to fix than if you would have a fault on an overhead power line. You have to not only find out where the fault is underground, but you have to dig it up, then fix it, and then bury it again. With this [silicon] process we're able to deal with the possibility of underground outages by extending the life of these cables and reduce that threat."

Owen says over the 20-year project, which is in year three, they will be extending the life of 3,000 kilometres of cable. He notes 30 kilometres of cable costs approximately $750,000, meaning 3,000 kilometres will come at a cost of approximately $75-million.

"We've also got ageing infrastructure," notes Owen. "With poles, we have in the province, some are more than 75-years old and they will need replacing too. Dealing with the underground cable is just a very, very small part of trying to maintain the system that's getting older."