Beginning Monday evening Pomona College experienced three power outages in as many days. This comes in the aftermath of Southern California Edison's refusal to allow the Claremont Colleges to opt out of their I-6 interruptible power rate structure until March. The Colleges had thought they would be able to opt out of the contract in November.

Ranging from 45 minutes to just under two hours, the outages were caused by increased energy needs due to recent cold weather, the need to use lights for more hours each night as daylight savings ended, and the loss of approximately 11,000 megawatts of power generation (29% of the available electricity within the state) due to scheduled maintenance.

The power outages occur only when extreme shortages of energy are anticipated. For example, during Wednesday's power outage, a Stage 1 Emergency was declared by the ISO at 5:00 pm, and a Stage 2 Emergency followed 15 minutes later.

Dean of Students Ann Quinley indicated that Pomona might want to leave the interruptible rate power structure while the other colleges remained on that rate structure. Previously administrators said that the colleges would negotiate power contracts together.

"There's something odd about being a top ranked college and having the power keep going out," Quinley said. "But presidents at the other colleges seem to think the current structure is not such a big deal."

Under the current setup, Pomona pays lower rates for electricity. Savings amount to $1 million per year.