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 delivery of structural steel for the Grapevine substation has arrived and additional shipments are expected weekly; foundations for the site will start after the awarded contractor mobilizes. On the substation switchgear order, Rick said Siemens has requested an additional $6,400 because of tariffs and that staff see few alternatives short of delaying the purchase by a year and a half.

Staff said the foundation and below-grade bid package for the substation was awarded to Bodek, and the contractor is expected on site to begin foundation work next week. Transmission-line drawings from the steel supplier are pending; once received, staff said, they will post a construction schedule. Staff also reported conduit work tied to Red Hills Parkway is nearly finished and will enable an additional distribution feed for the Canyon Breeze area.

The board received an update on metering and billing. A planned upgrade to the utility billing system is scheduled to complete June 9; staff are working on integrating Clara with Springbrook so the upgraded metering and billing stack can generate customer bills. Staff reported roughly 5,600 standard residential meters in stock and described a short-term plan to redeploy some manually read units to buy time if the new software integration encounters delays.

On grid operations, staff completed emissions verification testing for the generators in early April with satisfactory results and have scheduled valve adjustments before peak season. The Telegraph rebuild project is complete, increasing feeder capacity between Staley and Sienna Hills subs and to Main Street. Staff also described replacement work on aging current transformers in Sienna Hills and Buena Vista and plans to retrofit brackets to reduce stress on those devices.

The utility reported an uptick in solar-related applications in April (13 applications, nine from existing solar customers upgrading panels or adding batteries). Staff said more than half of recent solar applicants included battery storage, which the utility expects will shift some distributed energy to evening periods and could benefit local load management.

On regional projects and finance, Rick said the utility signed the federal IRA grant agreement with the state last week and must document Buy American requirements for materials. He also reported Nebo-Payson bonds were paid off in April and that the Power County project secured a subscription after Logan signed for 15 megawatts, allowing that project to move toward financing. The Miller County natural gas project remains in early design with an end-of-year goal for a refined cost estimate.

Board members discussed the possibility of participating in an "all-requirements" joint-action model through UAMPS (Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems) or similar joint-action arrangements as day‑ahead market (eDAM) changes approach. Staff said the eDAM scheduling and a coming resource-efficiency requirement are scheduled to start about a year from now; Rocky Mountain jurisdiction tariff details remain pending. Rick described the trade-offs: an all-requirements model can simplify scheduling and procurement but reduces local autonomy over resource choices.

The meeting also covered a recent outage after a cross-arm brace nut worked loose and an energized conductor contacted a pole, starting a fire; crews replaced the pole overnight and restored service. Staff noted older hardware is being replaced with fiberglass arms and modern braces as part of rebuilds.

Formal housekeeping items on the agenda (approval of the agenda, approval of minutes and adjournment) were moved and seconded during the meeting and handled without extended discussion.

The board scheduled its next meeting for June 3.

Ending note: staff asked board members to consider the UAMPS participation options and said more detailed information will be provided to the board and to the UAMPS board in coming weeks as deadlines related to market changes approach.