Tuesday, August 8, 2023–12:39 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Georgia Power is spending $680 million in Northwest Georgia to update the power grid, with the money being targeted at the utility’s worst-performing circuits.
Rome and Floyd County projects include the rebuilding of the 12th Street substation; according to Tony Ferguson with Georgia Power.
“That will start at the end of this year,” he said. “Also on 12th Street, we will be doing some targeted undergrounding, and then out of the Dodd Boulevard substation, again, targeted undergrounding. That should be completed in either late August or early September.”
Line strengthening work is expected to get underway in Celanese later this year and out of the Calhoun Road station in 2024.
“So we are taking those old wooden and metal cross arms off the top of our poles, and we are installing fiberglass cross arms,” Ferguson said. “Those fiberglass cross arms will actually take shock load a lot better when a tree falls.”
According to Ferguson, smart devices will be added to the system; particularly out of the Rome and Redmond substation.
“Before we had smart devices a tree would fall on the line and take out power to all of the residences until we rolled a truck, cut the tree off, and get the wire up,” Ferguson said. “Now, with the smart devices, when a tree hits the line, they start talking to each other to see which one saw the fault. They will start picking back up load until they get to the device that saw the fault, and that will stay out until we can get out there to cut the tree. So, with the smart devices we are able, even before we roll trucks a lot of the time, to pick up a lot of the lad electronically.”
The projects in Rome are part of a 10-year grid investment program going on across the state.
The goal is to improve reliability and resiliency.
“The power doesn’t go out as much, and when it does it comes back on quicker,” Ferguson added. “The work also allows our system to carry more load and more amps.”
Ferguson said that several month before work begins in a neighborhood, the customers will begin getting postcards, explaining the program. Then, when the work is set to begin, they will get a door hanger.