Delaware Electric Cooperative has completed construction on a new $4.4 million substation in Sussex County.
The Dorey Substation went on line late last month, providing power to an estimated 2,100 homes in the Georgetown area.
“This was an old switching station that previously provided power to one of our transmission lines that fed another substation,” said Delaware Electric Cooperative vice president of engineering Troy Dickerson.
He says due to load growth in the area, they decided to make that switching station a full blown substation, “So with the full-blown substation we set a large transformer - an estimated 20-mva transformer in the station that has distribution circuits that power down to feed local houses.”
Dickerson says the new substation gives the Co-Op a tie-line between two other substations - the Pepper Substation and the Fairmount Substation - so if there is a problem with either of those, the Dorey Substation can provide power to customers.
The Dorey Substation was developed in partnership with Delmarva Power, which is the Delaware Electric Cooperative’s transmission provider.
Dickerson says more projects are in the works - including a substation in Lewes and a facility helping to serve Kent County.
“We’ve got a piece of property that we’re looking at buying off of Reynolds Pond Road - that’s in Sussex County - but the piece of property is in close proximity to Kent (County); it’s just north of Milton. And with that piece of property, we’re going to be able to extend some of those circuits into Kent County,” he said.
Dickerson says since load growth is not as high in Kent County as Sussex County, a whole new substation will probably not be built there.
However, the Co-Op plans to replace aging power transformers over the next five years.