Duncan city council has allocated close to $190,000 for the removal and replacement of the Fire Hall backup emergency generator.
According to council, the project was included in the 2024 Captial plan and was carried forward to 2025 with $142,000 funded from borrowing from equipment reserves.
Prep Energy was awarded the bid to replace the generator after a council report says all bids were evaluated in detail, but they had to award the contract based on previous experience, resources and project superintendent qualifications.
They say the overall cost is higher than what was originally budgeted for and they’ll make up the difference by allotting it from other sources, which includes a contingency fund.
“The overall project costs are higher than what is available in the current project budget of $142,000,” the report says. “It’s recommended that the budget shortfall of $38,700 be funded from Fire Department Equipment Reserves, plus up to $10,000 for contingencies, and repaid to the reserves over the life of the generator.”
According to the city, the old generator needed to be replaced because it won’t cover the entire building and could affect the department’s ability to respond to calls if an outage lasts more than 72 hours.
Other tenders for the project included Cullen Diesel ($149,715.30), Sasco Contractors (for a combined two bid total of $477,910.50), and T7T Power Group Inc. (321,579.14).
The new generator will be sent in from Europe and the city says it won’t be affected by the tariffs.
