Unusual place for sub station

[hillbilly1]

This one is a question for the utility guys and gals, Our local power company is installing a new substation about 10 miles from the main sub station in town. It is being feed by 69.9 KV lines. Whats kinda strange is this substation is near the end of their system. They do not interconnect or presently have the capability of tying into another POCO's distribution system. There is no industrial and very small commercial loads out at this end of the county. It's not heavily populated with residental housing, mostly small agricultural and cattle farms. Mostly too mountainous to build heavily. For the utility to invest in this large of a sub station, something big must be comming that their not telling us. I don't expect Disney land or world,(but they have rummored a ski slope for years) But it don't make sense to put it near the end of their lines and feeding back torwards the main sub station.

 

[iwire]

Maybe the NSA needs another large power hungry facility.

 

[zbang]

Wind farm or co-gen plant going in there?

 

[wireguru]

does this utility have cheap rates? any fiber routes pass nearby? maybe google or microsoft is a comin....

 

[don_resqcapt19]

In Illinois that type of installation would have to be approved by the commerce commission and all of the testimony that would show the need for the substation would be public record documents and be published online. I would expect it to be about the same in your area.

 

[hillbilly1]

Wind farm or co-gen plant going in there?

Very doubtful, it is a very upscale area that is popular with wealthy retire's. And very difficult to buy property. (no restrictions, but not many people will sell, large multi generational family owned parcels) They wanted to put up a cell tower, and the only way they could was a non-lighted monopole design.

 

[hurk27]

I know they installed a few around here to cover allot of older single runs, to provide redundant loop feeds to lower failure rates, our utility commission has been all over our POCO and has levied some large fines for to many outages, we have allot out in the sticks areas around where there were only single runs down a road, so they brought in some 69.9kv lines to substations, and re fed these 7.2kv lines from the end of the run to give these lines redundancy and isolation capability.

 

[hillbilly1]

This utility has been really good at keeping the power on within their limitations, no brownouts or major power quality issues. Nobody wants the wide right of ways cut due to asthetics, so we have a lot of outages during storms and during the winter due to trees falling, but they are usually quick to get it back on during the summer, but not very fast during the winter (steep roads and ice don't mix). I went to their website to see if they posted any info, and all they mention is a new 69.9 substation in the neighboring county which is centrally located in their territory. I searched for a commerce commission in our area, as Don suggested, but we don't have one, we do have a public service commission which regulates the utilities, but nothing on their website mentions anything about it.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

... we do have a public service commission which regulates the utilities, but nothing on their website mentions anything about it.

That is somewhat surprising. I would expect that they would have to get a certificate of need or something like that before they could spend money on a that type of project. However if the website is anything like Illinois, it will be difficult to find the information.

 

[ControlFreak]

This utility has been really good at keeping the power on within their limitations, no brownouts or major power quality issues. Nobody wants the wide right of ways cut due to asthetics, so we have a lot of outages during storms and during the winter due to trees falling, but they are usually quick to get it back on during the summer, but not very fast during the winter (steep roads and ice don't mix). I went to their website to see if they posted any info, and all they mention is a new 69.9 substation in the neighboring county which is centrally located in their territory. I searched for a commerce commission in our area, as Don suggested, but we don't have one, we do have a public service commission which regulates the utilities, but nothing on their website mentions anything about it.

Might I ask where you're located? Sounds just like Western NC

 

[hillbilly1]

Might I ask where you're located? Sounds just like Western NC

Very close, North Georgia, I can get to North Carolina in about 15 minutes, Tennessee in about 30, South Carolina in about 65 minutes. Tallest mountain in Georgia is almost in my back yard.