The engineering department is currently working on a large project to build a new substation that will provide capacity to meet forecasted load growth and bolster reliability to our membership in the northern part of our service area.
Another large project for our group is the installation of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. Phase I of the new SCADA system is to install system software and new hardware in all KEC substations by the first quarter of 2022. Once the SCADA system is commissioned, it will provide KEC with real-time monitoring and control of devices on 37 distribution feeders across our entire service area. Advance work on Phase II of this project has begun and involves integrating SCADA with our mapping system and outage management system. The additional features provided by Phase II will allow the cooperative to better respond to outage situations, perform switching to re-route power, improve reliability, and reduce wildfire risk.