Stepping Up Distribution

摘要

Facing a transmission line rerouting situation, El Paso Electric decides to feed a transmission line with a distribution source, requiring innovative engineering. Land developers asked El Paso Electric Co. (EPE) to reroute a portion of a radial 115-kV transmission line that feeds the town of Hatch, New Mexico, U.S., for aesthetic reasons. The old transmission line was obscuring the magnificent pinnacles of the Organ Mountains. Rerouting the 115-kV transmission line with no customer interruptions was going to be a challenge, considering it was a radial line in a remote area with no other high-voltage sources nearby. After some resourceful brainstorming, EPE decided to source the line from the distribution system. This brought on a host of technical issues that would need to be resolved before the distribution system was ready to connect to the 115-kV line, but EPE was determined to make it work. Fulfilling this request would allow EPE to modernize this transmission line with steel structures but presented two initial challenges. First, the remaining radial transmission line had to be fed from a distribution source for three months while rerouting took place. Second, the radial transmission line had to be reconfigured safely without customer outages.