Roseville Energy Park returns to service; city readies generation and reliability for summer demand

Sean Matcham, Roseville Electric’s chief operating officer filling in for CEO Dan Beam, told the Public Utilities Commission on May 26 that the Roseville Energy Park was returned to full service about “a week and a half ago,” restoring roughly 157 megawatts of generating capacity to the city’s portfolio.

“That facility is back online and was cleared for regular operation Saturday before last,” Matcham said, adding that the plant had been offline since last fall for a major steam‑turbine overhaul and a longer‑than‑expected recommissioning with the equipment manufacturer.

The timing matters because Matcham said the restored capacity will help meet hot‑weather demand in the coming months. He also updated the commission on a repower at the Sunset Energy Center, saying the facility’s first fire is being targeted for late July with availability for support in August.

Assistant Electric Utility Director Chris Porter followed with an annual reliability overview for calendar 2025. Porter said Roseville’s outage frequency and duration compare favorably to larger utilities: on the single‑year metric the city experienced an outage about “one every 12 and a half years,” while the five‑year averages were closer to one outage every seven years and roughly 20 minutes of outage time per customer on average.

Porter reviewed outage causes and examples, including wildlife, vegetation, weather and equipment failure — the latter accounting for about 25% of outages last year — and cited vehicle collisions that have taken down switches and poles. To reduce outages, staff described routine substation maintenance, frequent visual inspections, an active tree‑trimming crew and proactive underground cable replacement.

“We have about $12 million set aside to do that type of work,” Porter said, referring to replacement of underground cable and other proactive measures to reduce equipment failures.

Porter also noted the utility’s distribution system is predominantly underground (about 86%), which he said reduces weather‑related outages; sub‑transmission (60 kV) lines remain primarily above ground because of cost. He pointed to a combination of system design, redundant feeds and fast field response times — average response was reported as about 29 minutes last year — as reasons Roseville’s reliability metrics remain strong.

Taken together, commissioners were told, the restored generation capacity plus the network resiliency and ongoing equipment investments should position the city to better manage summer peak demand. The commission did not take formal action on the updates, which were presented for information only.

The commission next scheduled follow‑up updates and invited staff to return with more detailed presentations later in the year.