E L E C T R I C U P DAT E S By Josh Filler, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer - Electric Operations Utilities are a very heavy infrastructure and capitalintensive business. With that, you are likely seeing many projects underway in our territory. Over the last few years, we have worked to target aging infrastructure and improve reliability through the building or rebuilding of new electric infrastructure.
of 69,000 Volt transmission line. We have rebuilt twelve miles and built seven new miles of transmission line. In early 2024, we will begin rebuilding the nine-mile transmission line that feeds our Jelloway Substation in Northern Knox County. With this project, as well as AEP’s improvements in Coshocton County, our members in the Jelloway and Loudonville substation areas should see an improvement in their reliability from transmission caused outages.
Josh Filler
Over the last five years, the electric division has invested nearly $58 million dollars into our system from projects such as aging infrastructure, rebuilding of substations, new automated metering infrastructure, transmission line builds and supporting new services on the system. All of these projects support increased reliability and ultimately strengthen our ability to serve members. I would like to take the opportunity to share some of the ongoing and upcoming projects that support this effort and that you may see going on in your area.
BROADBAND MOVES INTO OUR SYSTEM
There has been a significant increase in pole attachment requests from third parties like Charter (Spectrum) over the past 18 months. They are working on a large effort to bring high-speed internet to the more rural areas of our system. Mercury Broadband (Mercury Wireless) will also be working to bring the same high-speed broadband to underserved areas. Over the past few months, we have seen requests for attachments on 7,500 of our poles. That is about 14% of our total poles and is a hefty project. We fully support their efforts and know our members will benefit from better internet access. We expect this effort to continue over the next few years as the providers fulfill their commitments to serve rural areas.
PLEASANT HILL LAKE SUBMARINE CABLE CROSSING
We are undertaking a unique project to replace the submarine cable that crosses Pleasant Hill Lake. This cable serves Mohican Lodge and is also a main line tie between our Jelloway and Loudonville substations. The cable is over 50 years old and is beginning to show signs of its age.
AGING INFRASTRUCTURE
Every year, we commit a significant amount of capital investment to replace infrastructure that is beyond its useful life and showing deterioration. We target areas that are 60-70+ years old and tend to have poor reliability. We evaluate and identify projects a year in advance and target roughly 20-25 miles of line to rebuild for the upcoming year. The electric division does not foresee a slow down in infrastructure investment to keep up with member expectations, growth and the ability to provide the best service we can.
TRANSMISSION
Beginning in 2017, we started rebuilding some of our transmission facilities that were built in the 1950’s. The Energy Cooperative owns and operates 40 miles myenergycoop.com
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