NEENAH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Power lines are coming down in Neenah. It’s part of a larger project by We Energies, upgrading the city’s electrical system.
For the past five years, We Energies workers have been busy rebuilding or moving roughly 50 miles of overhead power lines underground.
“When anyone’s working in someone’s front yard, I get a phone call, but I explain to them what’s going on and, you know what, nine times out of 10, they’re happy because they lose that electrical line going over; it’s underground,” city of Neenah Mayor Dean Kaufert said. “They’re not gonna have power outages and that.”
New technology, raising We Energies’ network from 4,000 volts to 12,000 volts, has also been installed through this project.
“That has helped us provide more reliable service, a stronger grid for our customers that’s more reliable, reduces the number of outages and improves, by lowering the number of customer interruption minutes,” We Energies president Tom Metcalfe said.
So far, these upgrades have already improved electric reliability by over 90% in the area.
“We know that, because we look at the number of customer interruptions in the five years prior to doing the work, and we’re looking at the reliability now, and we can see a significant improvement,” said Metcalfe.
We Energies chose the city of Neenah and began working on this multiyear task, with a goal of creating a more modern, higher-voltage distribution system.
Metcalf tells FOX 11 the company is investing over $50 million to get this work done.
“It’s a cost that will be socialized across our network, because we can show that the reliability improvements are necessary, and we’re replacing aging equipment, so for the community, very little impact, in terms of cost.”
The project is slated to be completed by the end of 2022.
We Energies says, with this project, it’s been able to convert four of its substations and donate one of those back to the city. It also says two other substations are in the process of being transferred.
