A charging station with two fast chargers for drivers of electric vehicles in Oak Ridge. Smart meters and a new “control center” that will give a real-time view of the city’s “smart” electric grid (called a supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, system). And by the end of the decade, a new solar farm on the hill within the Y-12 National Security Complex where the old water treatment plant is finishing out the last year of its operating life.
But the chief goals of Dave Cross, director of the city of Oak Ridge Electric Department (CORED) since December 2023, are the modernization and expansion of the city’s aging electricity delivery infrastructure. Such an upgrade is needed because of anticipated growth in new electric load, including new nuclear facilities and other new businesses in Oak Ridge. He spoke about this subject to members of the city’s Environmental Quality Advisory Board (EQAB) at their May meeting.
Utility workers tie in a new transmission line into an Oak Ridge substation.
Cross previously worked for Plateau Electric Cooperative, which provides the power needed by Morgan and Scott counties. He served as the cooperative’s director of finance and accounting starting in 1986 and then as its CEO for the last 15 years of his 37-year career there.
Cross said he has had a good relationship over many years with officials at the Tennessee Valley Authority, which produces electricity and transmits it to power distributors such as the city. He noted that TVA is planning to expand its energy sources for generating electricity because of the expected growth in demand for power.
On June 13, The Oak Ridger reported that electric bills for Oak Ridge residents and business owners, which increased 2% last year, will rise by another 2.75% this October. Lauren Gray, city spokesperson, said the average residential customer will see a monthly increase of $3.50.
In a City Council meeting item memo in June, Cross wrote that the rate increase is expected to generate an additional $1.6 million a year for the city and CORED. In a recent email, he noted that he has emphasized to City Council that CORED constantly compares the city’s electric rates with those of neighboring utilities and “will work hard to remain rate-competitive with them.”
At the EQAB meeting on May 1, members learned the city will be replacing aged wooden poles, old copper conductor (overhead wires that date back to the 1940s) and substation transformers (that date back to the 1960s) between now and 2034. To pay for the pole and conductor replacements and the modernization, Cross said, the city will budget for electrical system upgrades estimated to cost $68 million.
“We anticipate that the modernized electric system will deliver more than 200 megawatts of electricity to city customers by 2034,” he noted, adding that CORED currently has a peak demand of just over 100 megawatts.
During his talk to EQAB members, Cross mentioned initiatives such as the planned installation of a charging station with two fast chargers for electric vehicle (EV) drivers, a solar farm and smart meters that will be tied in with the SCADA system now being installed. The smart meter installation is underway.
“A fast-charging station for EVs is a good fit for our community,” he said, noting he was glad that City Council agreed “to approve the 20% match for the charging station” that would be subject to an 80% reimbursement by a TVA program.
The selection of a spot in the city for the charging station and its installation will be handled by Seven States Power Corp., Cross said. Seven States is an energy solutions cooperative that is owned and operated by the 153 local power companies, including Oak Ridge, that purchase wholesale electricity from TVA and distribute it across the seven-state service area of the nation’s largest public power provider.
Cross said he plans to ask Seven States Power Corp. for assistance in procuring a contractor to build a solar farm on the site of the city’s current water treatment plant adjacent to the Y-12 National Security Complex. The water treatment plant there will be closed in 2026.
TVA’s Generation Flexibility Program, according to Cross, allows local power companies like Oak Ridge to install solar or wind technologies to generate up to 5% of the city’s average demand for electricity, potentially lowering local power costs. Work on the solar farm would not start until 2026 or 2027 after the old water treatment plant is officially retired, he said.
Work is continuing on the new water treatment facility. Officials broke ground on the project in October 2022. The current water treatment plant was built by the government in 1943.
He explained that work this year to modernize the city’s electric system includes starting to replace traditional analog electric meters with digital “smart” meters. The meters Oak Ridgers have now display energy consumption in kilowatt-hours that are read manually every month by CORED meter readers.
CORED workers are currently installing what is technically called an advanced meter infrastructure (AMI). He listed several advantages of AMI digital meters over the traditional analog meters.
The AMI automation of data collection allows utilities to understand consumption patterns precisely; enables customers to monitor their usage throughout the day; eliminates human error in reading energy usage data; detects power outages instantly; automatically sends alerts to the utility and will help CORED pinpoint the location and extent of outages more quickly, leading to faster restoration of service.
The SCADA system being installed at Oak Ridge substations will work with AMI in modernizing CORED’s power distribution network and will provide comprehensive monitoring, control and data analysis. A SCADA system will equip CORED with supervisory control and data acquisition for its transformer substations that distribute power to customers
The integration of AMI and SCADA will give CORED a “smart” grid, enabling greater efficiency, reliability and responsiveness to power interruptions, Cross said.
In answers to questions, he told EQAB that a homeowner or business owner who wants to install rooftop solar panels should contact the city’s Planning and Development Department to get a permit, as well as CORED. The final installation and its operation, he added, should be inspected by a city electrician to ensure protection of the grid.
In a discussion of the attractiveness of Oak Ridge neighborhoods that have underground power lines, Cross said the city does not require underground electric cables in new housing developments. He noted that some developers invest in installing underground lines to increase the attractiveness of the new neighborhood to potential homebuyers.
Concerning transformers, he said that because the demand for them is so great worldwide and because transformer factories are overloaded with orders, “we had to reserve a spot in line for transformers that we might not be able to get for three to four years.”
In a previous article in The Oak Ridger, Cross said that small transformers on poles that cost $1,700 in 2018 are now priced at more than $5,000, a more than 220% increase.
Dave Cross, city of Oak Ridge Electric Department director
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Increased electrical capacity, smart meters in Oak Ridge’s future