By Chris Hill, SDMEA Director of Municipal Electric Services HOMETOWN - Sioux Falls Light and Power This month I had the pleasure of meeting with Sioux Falls Light and Power. I was excited to clear up my confusion of just how Sioux Falls Municipal Electric supplies power to just some of Sioux Falls. Light and Power Superintendent Jerry Jongeling and his staff were excited to show me the history of their building as well as explaining which areas of Sioux Falls are in their service area. Superintendent Jongeling explained to me that their service territory is land locked and covers a large area of northern Sioux Falls to downtown. It is scattered at times and there could be different providers on the same city block. They serve around 2,700 customers with 600 commercial services. The rest being residential including homes and apartments. They also maintain about 20,000 street lights are working on replacing the lights with LED. At this point, they have replaced about 430 with LED and have received a grant from Heartland Consumers Power District for $5,000 towards the replacement of the lights.
have an annual cost of around $50,000. Sioux Falls Light and Power is replacing those 284 and will be able to reduce the amount of lights to 140 LED lights. Sioux Falls Light and Power is also implementing AMI (Census) and is in the process of a pilot project of 75 meters with three billing cycles to test the project and will move forward if it checks out to their standards.
Piston from the old generators that is now a work bench.
Speaking of lights, the Sioux Falls Light and Power also maintains the lights on the 300 yard tunnel on 57th Street that goes under the interstate and that tunnel is also getting new lights. Currently there are 284 HP Sodium lights that
Staff at the Sioux Falls Light and Power Department (from l to r) Jerry Jongeling, Kevin Klinkhammer, Andy Gerovac, Donna Larsen, Eric Nelson, Tony Wolles, and Terry Adams. 26
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
