Jul. 20--Due to equipment failure at Yuma's Yucca Power Plant, Arizona Public Service on Monday asked its Yuma customers to reduce their electricity consumption to avoid any potential outages, Yuma APS spokeswoman Andrea Bereznak said.

The plant's equipment failure late Sunday afternoon, Bereznak said, has reduced APS' capacity to generate electricity for the area, especially during peak hours.

"We are asking our customers be conscientious of their power consumption until we get the equipment back into service," Bereznak said Monday.

The outage left 14,000 customers without electricity. Customers in the western part of the city and in the Foothills were mainly affected. As of 9:40 p.m., power had been restored to about all customers, according to APS.

While it may pose an inconvenience to their customers, Phoenix spokesman Alan Bounnell said the most important time to use less power was between the hours of 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Monday.

"We are confident with the public's help, coupled with the effort we are making, that we will be able to keep the power on," Bounnell said. "Once the equipment is back in service, we will have the capacity to meet our customer's regular usage demands again."

In the event a voluntary reduction in energy use by APS' Yuma customers was not enough to reduce the electrical load to necessary and safe levels, Bounnell and Bereznak said APS would have to cut power to certain areas of the city on a rotating basis.

"It's something that we hope we won't have to do," Bereznak said. "But it is going to depend on whether customers can keep their usage at a lower rate."

As of 3 p.m. Monday, the request was working and Bereznak said APS wasn't seeing the steady climb in demand for power the company typically experiences during peak hours.

She credited the City of Yuma, Yuma County government and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma for committing to reduce their energy consumption during the time period.

Bounnell said to help meet the demand, on Monday APS turned on a old gasoline generator at the Yucca plant. He added they expect everything to be repaired by Tuesday morning and fully operational again.

While Bounnell or Bereznak said they did not know if the equipment failure was caused by the dust storm that hit Yuma on Saturday, they said it is still under investigation.

Some suggestions to curtail power usage between the hours of 2 and 7 p.m.:

--Raise thermostat settings to no lower than 82 degrees.

--Turn off extra lights and all other major appliances that are absolutely not needed.

--Avoid operation of pool pumps during daytime hours.

--Avoid use of certain appliances such as clothes dryers, washers and dishwashers during daytime hours.

In the interim, APS customers who have questions about their energy use can call the APS Customer Solutions Center at 1-602-371-7171 or toll-free at 1-800-253-9405. Customers also can learn additional ways to conserve energy at www.aps.com.

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