Washington City Power Board hears substation, billing and grid updates; staff signs federal grant agreement

The Washington City Power Board on an evening meeting heard a broad operations update from staff that covered delivery of substation steel for the Grapevine project, an unexpected $6,400 tariff request from Siemens on a circuit breaker order, a June 9 utility billing software upgrade, a signed federal grant agreement and a board-level discussion about possible participation in an "all-requirements" joint-action model for wholesale resources.

The session opened with an introduction of Scott Hughes, who was presented as the utility's new assistant director. Hughes said, "Definitely happy to be here... I was the director over there, the power director over there. 19 years at Hurricane City," and said he moved to the Washington-area utility after nearly two decades in Hurricane.

Rick (power department staff) delivered the bulk of the operational report and framed why several items matter to customers and to the board. He said the utility's recently approved impact-fee update will take effect June 1 and that the fiscal-year 2026 budget is on schedule for the council public hearing next week. He added the city experienced a March system peak just under 21 megawatts and an April peak just under 26 megawatts, numbers he said reflect a mix of growth and weather.

On capital projects, staff reported the first…