Umatilla Electric has completed work on its newest substation, located at the southeast corner of Northeast 10th Street and East Elm Avenue.
Primary construction contractor for the $4.75 million project was Potelco Inc. of Sumner, Wash. Work began on Feb. 27.
Adding the Hermiston East Substation to the system will help reduce the number of customers affected by an outage and allow for quicker restoration times, UEC said in a news release.
The substation will serve both UEC members and Hermiston Energy Services (HES) customers. Both utilities and their electrical consumers will benefit from the added electrical capacity and increased reliability. HES contracts with UEC to maintain, build, and operate the HES system, which serves a portion of the city of Hermiston.
The substation is designed for two transformers. The first transformer was installed during initial construction. The second will be installed in the future to accommodate increased demand.
UEC will use three and HES three of the substation’s six feeders, which are electrical circuits that serve customers at distribution voltage.
As Hermiston and surrounding areas have experienced ongoing population and electrical growth, the area’s three electrical substations (Hermiston Butte Substation, Feedville Substation and Columbia Substation) need added capacity to continue providing adequate service to both existing and future loads.
This substation will have capacity to be served with power supplied from two separate points of delivery from the Bonneville Power Administration, offering both UEC and HES greater flexibility and service availability.
The transmission line connecting to this substation was already located on East Elm Avenue. Two new transmission poles have been added within the existing transmission easement to support the connection into the substation.
