A couple of weeks ago, Duquesne Light unveiled its more than $200 million Watson Substation, designed to strengthen and modernize the electrical grid powering Downtown Pittsburgh. As that power starts to get transferred over, Duquesne Light says there’s a small chance of outages. 

Beginning at 10 p.m. Tuesday night, crews will start the process of shifting power to the new system. That work will continue Wednesday night as well.

Duquesne Light officials say the new substation will provide another layer of reliability and resiliency to the Downtown area.

“It’ll be the third substation feeding the Downtown area, which serves as another layer of resiliency in the event of outages or extreme weather, things like that,” said Matt Neistein, Duquesne Light’s director of communications and brand.

The work will focus on two core areas in the Golden Triangle and while the company isn’t expecting major issues, there’s a small possibility of temporary outages.

“We’re expecting not to have anything happen at all, but there is a possibility of an outage that could last up to 30 minutes for those customers,” Neistein said.

The areas that could be affected include: Boulevard of the Allies; Fort Pitt Boulevard; Bigelow Square; Boyd, Chatham, Crawford, Diamond, Grant, Ross, Smithfield and Wood Streets; Centre, Forbes, Liberty, Oliver, First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Avenues; Cherry, Strawberry and William Penn Ways.

If you’re planning to be Downtown late Tuesday night, expect to see road closures, roped-off manholes and many workers in the area.

“There will be a large Duquesne Light presence Downtown tonight and tomorrow,” said Neistein. “You’ll see a lot of trucks, you’ll see a lot of flashing lights. We’ll have about 150 workers Downtown.”

Duquesne Light says it will notify customers by text, call or email if there are any service disruptions during the power transfer.