Conversion to New Substation Electrifying

After months of planning and preparation, the day had finally arrived. Cedarburg Light & Water employees climbed out of bed in the middle of the night on Saturday, April 30, to meet up at the new substation by 3:00 am. After a final review of the plans, some of the employees were dispatched to posts throughout the community and some stayed at the substation. “A couple of the gals from the office even came in, just in case there would be any phone calls during the outage,” remarked Dale Lythjohan, Utility Manager. “We were watching the clock, waiting for 4:00, because that’s when we told all of our customers we’d be turning the power off. After so much preparation, we just couldn’t wait to flip the switch, make the final connections, and see it all come together.”

4:00 came, the crew “pulled the plug” on the old substation and made the final connections to the new substation. The city was back in power within about three minutes. “It couldn’t have gone any smoother, we were very pleased,” said Lythjohan. “Our crew worked hard, our contractors worked hard, and we also appreciate any preparations our customers made to protect their electrical equipment from damage when the power was restored. You never know when, even the slightest surge of power, can damage a sensitive piece of equipment. During a storm, or anytime the power might go off and on, it’s good to know what to do – unplug equipment and/or use adequate surge protection devices.”

Now that the new 138,000 volt substation is operational, Cedarburg will no longer be dependent on distribution lines coming in from Mequon. All the power coming to Cedarburg will arrive through transmission lines owned by American Transmission Company. Transmission lines are traditionally more reliable than distribution lines, so this will be good for Cedarburg.

Additionally, the utility will receive a 4% discount on the cost to purchase power because it can now receive the electricity at a higher voltage. This discount will be put right into the utility, being a not-for-profit, community-owned utility. It will help to offset future increases in the rising cost to generate and transmit power.

The new substation is located on the south end of the city. It was designed to satisfy the capacity needs of the community for the next 30 to 50 years. It was funded through the use of cash reserves, so no new borrowings were needed.