The power service for nearly 1,000 Mesquite homes is about to get a whole lot more reliable. What’s more, most of the residents who live in those homes probably don’t even know that anything is happening. Even so, there is an important project underway in their neighborhood, thanks to the timely efforts of OPD5 staff.
A lot has changed since the power infrastructure was originally installed for the area south of 1st South Street, roughly between Grapevine and Arrowhead. Since those lines were put in, whole neighborhoods have gradually built up and been added to the grid. In fact, over the years, the area has actually outgrown certain elements of the original power system.
“That can happen occasionally,” said OPD5 Line Operations Manager Kyle Leavitt. “I mean, when we have a master-planned community like we have seen in Sun City, it’s easy. We know exactly what the subdivision sizes are going to be and we can plan for it all in advance. But with a neighborhood like this that has developed a little piece at a time over many years, long-term planning can be more of a challenge.”
That is why the district regularly hires experts to perform careful technical reviews on its system. This particular issue was actually discovered recently by an engineering consultant hired by OPD5 to do just such a study and identify any flaws or weak spots.
Using computer models, the consultant found that an underground feeder line, coming out of the nearby Arrowhead substation, was short on capacity to supply the load needed. Both the line, the underground conduit system carrying it and a good deal of other infrastructure all needed to be upgraded.
“Our consultant was the one who initially clued us into it as a potential problem,” said Leavitt. “So we knew we had an issue there and we quickly scheduled it into our budget to address it as soon as we could.”
Now, only a short while later, that time has come. Line crews have already rerouted power to the area by feeding from a different substation. That has allowed the crews safe space to set new utility vaults, install new conduit and even bore under the road in one spot – all to prepare for the installation of higher capacity cable to adequately feed the area.
The project is well underway and is expected to be fully complete within the next 6-8 weeks, well ahead of the peak demand summer season.
“This is the way that we like to take care of problems like this: well in advance,” Leavitt said. “It’s why we bring in experts to painstakingly study our system. And it is why we proactively jump in there to get things upgraded. After all, there are 978 homes that depend on this line to supply their power. That is a big deal to those customers, and it is a big deal to us.”