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Hurricane City Power Board hears multimillion-dollar transmission and substation plans, discusses customer bill changes
Summary
The Power Board reviewed major upcoming engineering and capital costs — including a $3 million transmission line and a $9.5–$10 million substation — and discussed a Power Cost Adjustment (PCA) flyer that will appear on customer bills; the board approved the minutes and deferred financing decisions to future work with the city.
The Hurricane City Power Board approved the meeting minutes and heard a budget update that outlined several multimillion-dollar projects and near-term changes to customer bills.
Mike, who led the budget update, told the board the two largest engineering items are work on the 138 kV loop around Hurricane (about $392,000) and engineering for Substation 1 on the Romney property (about $300,000). He said the transmission line that will feed the new Substation 1 is estimated at roughly $3,000,000, while the substation construction itself is estimated between $9.5 million and $10 million. Completing the Sky Mountain substation, he said, will cost about $6.5–$7.0 million.
"The substation itself, which is gonna be between 9 and a half and $10,000,000 to construct," Mike said, underscoring the scale of the projects the utility expects to finance.
Board members also discussed staffing and smaller capital items. Mike said the budget includes hiring an additional substation employee and requested approval of equipment such as a wire‑wheel trailer and an upper‑yard warehouse to increase storage and make the operation NERC/compliance ready.
The board reviewed how the Power Cost Adjustment (PCA) will appear on customers' bills and previewed a customer flyer explaining the PCA. Mike said the PCA may show up as a small credit or charge, depending on usage; as an example he noted a customer's bill could show a $1.83 credit attributable to the PCA this month. He and other members said the residential base rate was raised 50¢ while the per‑unit kilowatt cost dropped slightly to keep the change revenue neutral across rate classes.
"On your bill this month... you'll pull it up, and you'll see, like, a dollar 83 credit due to the power cost adjustment," Mike said while previewing the customer notice the utility plans to distribute with bills.
Board members said they are continuing to work with city council on bonding and financing options for the large transmission and substation projects and that definitive financing plans will be developed in coming months. The board did not take formal action on those projects during this meeting.
The meeting also included operations and generation updates: crews are completing pole setting and line work on 1100 West and Capacity 2, generation crews finished pre‑run inspections and repairs on multiple generators, and SCADA upgrades at several substations were reported as progressing.
What’s next: staff will continue detailed budgeting and coordination with city council on bonding and financing; the PCA flyer will be refined for distribution with upcoming bills.
