Federal funds awarded to the city of Ceres are enabling the purchased of a new Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) at the Ceres Police Station to replace an aging system.

Last week the Ceres City Council awarded an $114,785 bid to Cen Cal Electric, Inc. The funds are coming from millions of dollars allocated to Ceres from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The Clovis company will be installing an UPS, which differs from a traditional standby generator in that it provides near-instantaneous protection from power interruptions by switching to energy stored in battery packs, supercapacitors or flywheels. The on-battery run-times of most UPSs are relatively short (only a few minutes) but sufficient to “buy time” for the generator to kick on or properly shutting down the protected equipment. 

The police station was built in 1988 and using a backup emergency power generator and uninterrupted power supply (UPS) unit that is over 35 years old.

Public Works Director Samir Royal said the UPS system failed two years ago. The city has a generator but it takes about 10 seconds to kick in so the UPS would provide uninterrupted power for up to an hour and a half.