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07.16.03
Bigger Route 2-Stowe power
line eyed
$10-$15 million electric upgrade needed;
Stowe to pay portion of system expansion
BY JOHN ZICCONI, STOWE REPORTER
A group of area municipal electric departments
is planning to bring a new high voltage power line to Lamoille
County that would provide the region with enough electricity
to service growth for the next several decades.
Although local power officials cannot say how much excess
capacity Lamoille County has left, they acknowledge that additional
electric supply is limited. Stowe Mountain Resort, for example,
will likely have to pay $1.3 million to upgrade local transmission
lines to make the existing system efficient enough to supply
adequate power to its proposed ski hamlet at the base of Spruce
Peak.
The resort expansion, however, is expected to nearly max out
the northern loop, which is the power line that supplies most
of Lamoille County and Hardwick. Local electric officials
believe an estimated $10 million to $15 million upgrade may
be needed to ensure the region has enough power to handle
future demand once the new ski village is fully operational.
“Lamoille County is growing,” Bernard Machia,
general manager of Stowe Electric, said this week. “We
need additional transmission.”
Machia said a consortium of more than a half a dozen electric
companies have for months been planning ways to run a 115
kilovolt transmission line from the Duxbury Switching Station
on Route 2 to the Wilkins substation along Stowe’s River
Road. From Stowe, the new line would feed into the northern
loop to supply both Lamoille County and Hardwick.
Currently, the northern loop is fed only by a much smaller,
34.5 kilovolt line. Electric officials hope the new line can
be operational by 2006.
Just how much additional power this upgrade would bring, and
who would pay for it, is still under review. But once those
issues are resolved, Machia said Stowe could likely increase
its electrical usage about 30 percent from a peak of 14 megawatts
to about 18 megawatts.
“This is something Lamoille County really needs,”
said Machia, who is the designated spokesperson for the electric
consortium that includes Morrisville Water and Light, Hardwick
Electric, Green Mountain Power and others. “We are growing…
and it is not all just because of the Mountain Company. We
have expansion going on everywhere.”
Chances are the new 115 KV line would use the same right of
way as the old 34.5 KV line, which runs through mostly forest
land west of Route 100, he said.
Who
will foot the bill?
Financing also remains a question. Stowe’s representatives
to the Lamoille County Planning Commission have already heard
rumblings that Stowe Electric customers will be asked to foot
most of the bill.
“The stressing issue as I see it is who is going to
pay,” said Lynn Altadonna, a Stowe delegate on the Lamoille
County Planning Commission Board of Directors. “One
of the notions that was verbalized (at a recent planning commission
meeting) is it might be appropriate for Stowe to pay for it
since Stowe is responsible for the increase in power.”
Altadonna said the suggestion emanated from representatives
of the Vermont Electric Company who gave the Lamoille board
its briefing. The local electric consortium has contracted
with VELCO to engineer the project.
Stowe paying for the upgrade “was verbalized,”
Altadonna said. “But there was not a briefing chart
that said let’s stick it to Stowe. It was mentioned
as part of the question-and-answer period.”
Financing options for construction vary, but the power companies
would likely pass bonds. Bond payment would likely be made
through either surcharges or rate increases on electric bills.
Machia called the project’s plans “preliminary,”
and said it was too early to know how the improvement would
be financed. Final plans would have to be approved by the
Vermont Public Service Board, which is the state watchdog
agency that looks out for the interest of rate payers, he
said.
Asked if Stowe was being viewed as the project’s funding
source, Machia said “for the whole thing – no.
But I can’t really answer that. We have not done any
cost sharing yet. We are just starting to look at that now…
We (Stowe) are growing. But we are not the only place growing.”
As for construction, Machia said VELCO is still studying how
the 115 KV line could be brought to Stowe. The new line at
minimum would require taller poles than the ones currently
used to bring power to the region. Whether those polls could
also be used to carry the current 34.5 KV line is still being
investigated, he said.
But no matter what happens, additional easements from local
landowners would likely be necessary, he said.
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