Thousands of residents in parts of the Rural Municipality of Hanover will be without power for a portion of Sunday afternoon.

Bruce Owen with Manitoba Hydro says there will be a planned outage beginning at 1 pm for about two thousand customers in the Grunthal and Kleefeld areas. He notes the goal is for the outage to last no more than four hours.

Owen explains the De Salaberry East station was energized as of December 1st. There are six 66 KV wood pole lines that will exit that station, bringing power to area customers. According to Owen, Sunday's outage is needed in order to get one of those lines up and into service.

Owen says there will be an additional outage later this month or in early January. There are two more 66 KV lines that have to be constructed and put into service. But, Owen says that will not happen until spring.

A number of factors are taken into consideration when Manitoba Hydro schedules a planned outage. He notes their desire is to minimize inconvenience as much as possible. For example, schools and businesses might be impacted more significantly if the outage was to happen during the week. Manitoba Hydro must also make sure they have an appropriate number of staff on site in order for the work to be done as quickly as possible.

"We recognize there is no good time to have a scheduled outage of this size," admits Owen. "But the benefit to customers going forward is that the area that De Salaberry East station will serve, in the future customers can expect more reliable service."

Owen says this new hydro station is the result of all the growth in the area. He notes with this being one of the fastest growing regions in the province, Manitoba Hydro must be able to meet the needs of customers not only today, but for years to come.

According to Owen, Manitoba Hydro is hoping to have everything up and running at the De Salaberry East station by mid-Spring.