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Progress Energy is planning power outages in areas of Pinehurst today and Monday.

Progress is completing its upgrades to the Pinehurst system, necessitating four four-hour shut-downs of power to different parts of the village serving a total of nearly 2,000 customers.

During the outages, workers will replace transformers and other hardware outside homes and on poles throughout the village, said Andy Honeycutt, community relations manager for Progress.

"It's the last step," Honeycutt said.

The upgrades caused an unintentional power outage Aug. 23, when a substation failed.

Part of the upgrades include increasing the voltage and enhancing the distribution lines from the substation to make it compatible with the surrounding system.

What that means in English, Honeycutt said, is that should a blackout like the one in August occur again, Progress should be able to route power from an adjacent system and get the lights back on more quickly.

The system that serves Pinehurst, called the Pinehurst North electric substation, dates back to the Diamondhead days. It was so old that it couldn't handle the voltage from a nearby system.

"Basically, Pinehurst is an island as far as our system is concerned," Honeycutt said.

Those problems should end with the final work being done today and Monday.

To ensure the safety of technicians, power will be shut off to about 1,900 customers in Pinehurst.

From 7 to 11 a.m. today, power will be off in areas of Murdocksville Road, Moore Regional Hospital and Page Road to Midland Road.

From 1 to 5 p.m., power will be off to the areas of the ManorCare, Rattlesnake Trail and the Village Business District.

On Monday, from 7 to 11 a.m., there will be no power to areas of St. Andrews Drive and Linden Road. That afternoon, from 1 to 5 p.m., power will be off to areas of Donald Ross Drive, Barrett Road and the Carolina Hotel.

Progress has attempted to contact those affected by letter.

"Our goal is to provide a highly reliable electric system for our customers," Honeycutt said. "These upgrades are designed to make the substation and distribution lines compatible with the surrounding system, allowing us to switch customers and move load when necessary, with the goal of reducing outages in the future for our customers. We recognize that any power outage -- regardless of the cause -- is an inconvenience for our customers."

Matthew Moriarty may be reached at 693-2479 or by e-mail at moriarty@thepilot.com.