By Doug Graham, Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative Inc.
Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative members in Linn County and surrounding areas will soon benefit from enhancements to grid resilience thanks to state and federal awards totaling more than $615,000.
Heartland's Project RESTORE (Resiliency Enhancements to Strategically Transfer Optimized Reliable Energy) involves the installation of 10 remote-controlled "reclosers" to allow for speedy rerouting of power along existing lines to bring Linn County members back online within minutes – rather than hours – in the event of a substation outage.
By replacing hydraulic reclosers with remotely operated electronic reclosers, Heartland staff will be able to reroute power much more quickly, greatly reducing the time consumer members are out of power due to power supply interruptions. The project will allow Heartland staff to remotely reroute power between a total of 10 substations.
Heartland will receive more than $414,600 in federal funding for the project through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience Grant Program, and an additional $200,400 from the Build Kansas Fund, which was established by the Kansas Legislature to help Kansas organizations meet the matching fund requirements for federal infrastructure grants.
While the project was designed to address needs specific to Linn County, members in adjoining counties served by the affected substations will also benefit from these grid enhancements.
Heartland Chief Executive Officer Mark Scheibe said few electric distribution utilities serving rural areas would consider this type of project because of the cost and the technical knowledge required to make it work. As a result, already underserved areas miss out on technology that could substantially reduce outages.
“Our goal is for Project RESTORE to serve as a model for other rural providers to follow as they work toward improving grid resilience,” Scheibe said.
Project RESTORE was one of 11 projects selected for a total of nearly $17 million in funding through the DOE grid resilience program and the Build Kansas Fund.
Heartland Rural Electric Cooperative Inc. powers rural lifestyles throughout more than 11,000 locations in eastern Kansas. Heartland’s service area includes consumer-members in 12 counties, including Allen, Anderson, Bourbon, Cherokee, Coffey, Crawford, Labette, Linn, Miami, Neosho, Wilson, and Woodson.
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