2023-11-07 19:20:39
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Appalachian Power will soon have some major projects underway across the Central region of the state, making upgrades, improving efficiency and reliability to existing transmission systems, as well making construction preparations to accommodate a new, multi-billion dollar steel plant soon to come to the Mountain State.
The first project is expected to reduce the duration of power outages, as well as lower the overall number of those outages by making improvements to the electric power system for Charleston-Huntington area customers.
AEP Spokesperson Phil Moye told MetroNews they call these kinds of updates improving efficiency, reliability and resiliency to the system, Distribution Automation Projects, and they have been installing them across their service districts for several years now. He explains how they work.
Phil Moye
“So, let’s say you have a car to hit a pole, or a tree to fall on a line, this equipment would quickly isolate that area, and instead of having a large number of customers out it would just be the customers in the immediate area,” Moye said.
AEP received $2.5 million through the U.S Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program to support the project. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the U.S Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, helped secure the funding.
Moye said while the company already does projects of this nature around their service area anyway, he said grants such as this helps offset the amount of cost they have to put back into customer’s rates.
“With the federal funding that’s out there, whether it’s this or something else, if there is funding available we want to apply for it, because anything we can do to offset the cost to our customers from work that would otherwise be done and put into rates, we want to do that,” he said.
He said they have the Distribution Automation equipment on regarding 10-percent of their distribution circuits, but their aim is to expand that.
“We wanted to be able to add more and more circuits, because it’s a benefit to our customers, it improves reliability,” Moye said.
Another major project AEP has in store will make upgrades to a nearly 30-mile power transmission line in Mason County, which is expected to benefit Nucor, the new, multi-billion steel mill soon to be on its way to the Apple Grove area of the county.
In an earlier statement, AEP Spokesperson George Porter said the new poles as part of the project will be taller, studier, allowing for less line stretching across Lakin to Apple Grove. He said the current lines are outdated and in need of the upgrades.
“That line was built in the 60’s and now we’re looking at 50 or 60 years of weather, like ice and other storms. So, we want to replace the wooden poles with steel, reliable structures,” Porter said.
Porter said Nucor will not only benefit from the Lakin-Apple Grove line upgrade, but AEP also has a major project centered around providing quality service specifically to their plant, as well.
Moye said the project will include a new substation for Nucor, a couple of miles of transmission line connecting to them, as well as some upgrades to other current substations all to ensure they’re providing quality power to the company, as it’s a major need for them and the work they will be doing.
“Nucor is expected to have regarding 450 mega watts to use, which is just a huge amount of electricity, and so in order to provide that you have to have the transmission infrastructure in place to do that,” Moye said.
Moye said a 345 KV line is what will be serving Nucor, which is among the highest voltages AEP offers on their transmission system.
He said he expects Nucor to be one of AEP’s largest customers they have on their system, and one they will greatly benefit from.
“We’re really looking forward to it, because it’s just a great economic opportunity, and we’re glad to be here to serve that new customer,” he said.
In addition, Moye said a certain amount of the energy being delivered to Nucor will be renewable, which was one of the company’s considerations when looking to place their new plant.
“We were able to provide that and that’s going to be an ongoing thing for them, obviously they will use a lot of electricity, but some portion of that will be renewable,” Moye said.
He said they plan to get construction underway for the project in Summer 2024, and have service there by Dec. 2025.
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