Standby generators

 
At Clark Public Utilities, our goal is to provide you with highly reliable electric service, and 99.9 percent of the time we do. However, occasional power outages do occur.

If you want the added security of knowing you can run a refrigerator, furnace or other electronic equipment in case of an outage, you might consider installing a generator.

There are basically two kinds of residential-type generators:

• Portable generators provide up to 6,000 watts of electricity. They sit outside and usually run on gasoline. Portable generators don't create enough electricity to power your home — generally they're used to run individual appliances, such as refrigerators.
• Permanent generators provide up to 20,000 watts of electricity. These are wired into the electrical system of your home, and can keep several electrical appliances operating at once, depending on generator size.
  

Do not plug a back-up generator into a wall outlet in your home without first disconnecting from our system.

Both portable and permanent generators should be installed with a transfer switch, which will cut your home's connection to the Clark Pulbic Utilities electric system before you start the generator in the event of an outage. This is a critical safety feature that prevents your generator from backfeeding electricity into utility lines and putting our workers at risk.