ATTICA, OH (November 7, 2019) —North Central Electric Cooperative (NCE) received a Distinguished Contributions to Economic Development Award from the Wyandot County Office of Economic Development and Regional Planning for building the Adrian substation. The cooperative was recognized at the organization’s annual dinner, held Nov. 6, 2019.
The nearly $1.8 million substation project, built by Vaughn Industries of Carey in 2018, is the 12th substation for NCE and will serve the Wyandot area for years to come.
“Building the substation on my watch as a trustee for North Central Electric makes me proud that we are involved in bettering the community by providing affordable and reliable energy for our members,” says Duane Frankart, NCE board president. “This is what the co-op is all about — we are member-owned, and we are here to serve our members.”
The Adrian substation, located in Tymochtee Township in northern Wyandot County, was built to enhance service reliability as well as alleviate some of the load from NCE’s Carey substation. The substation helps satisfy future load growth and maintain reliability by reducing congestion in the power grid. It also helps to “step down” high-voltage electricity from the transmission system to lower-voltage electricity so that it can be easily supplied to homes and businesses through distribution lines. The substation also accommodates growing demand from the National Lime and Stone Co. and Kalmbach Feeds near Carey.
“The transformer has a capacity of 22.4 megawatts, and that’s large enough that it can help the immediate area and surrounding areas to help keep more people’s electricity on in times of need,” said North Central Electric Director of Engineering and Operations Brad Warnement. “With a project cost of roughly $1.8 million dollars, this was a big investment that will provide benefits to our members and large key accounts in the area for many, many years to come.”
After construction was completed, the substation was connected to NCE’s supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which gives the cooperative the ability to monitor and control substations from the NCE headquarters with state-of-the-art technology.