Electrical upgrades coming to Sussex Co. will help almost 76,000 people
MILLSBORO, Del. – Delmarva Power has ambitious plans for the Millsboro area, a place that’s seen major growth. They plan to upgrade an 11-mile long transmission line, a change that residents are welcoming with open arms.
“I think it would be good this area is growing all the time,” says Julie Hattier, a Millsboro resident.
“It would help to make power outages not happen as often and to bring power back quicker,” says Barbara Hopkins, a Millsboro resident.
Delmarva Power recently finalized a costly plan to rebuild a section of their transmission line that’s almost 40 years old.
“We regularly review our systems to see where upgrades are needed, where upgrades could benefit customers. And this is one that we decided would allow us to provide customers improved reliability in the area,” says Tim Stokes, PIO for Delmarva Power.
The $21.5 million dollar project has been years in the making but couldn’t have come at a better time. These upgrades will help power lines withstand storms like the tornado that ripped through Laurel in April.
“This is providing additional strength to the system so I still see a lot of these are wooden poles. We’re going to be replacing them with galvanized steel poles which do better in inclement weather and other conditions like that,” says Stokes.
While Delmarva Power is using their manpower for this rebuild, officials say this won’t just help their customers.
“Indirectly it will benefit each of the customers along the line. It might not even be Delmarva Power customers. It could be Delaware Electric Co-op customers but actually they will see an impact over long periods of time because this is the backbone of our grid,” says Brandon Snyder, lead engineer with Delmarva Power.
The new poles will be able to withstand winds of up to 150 MPH. Some other good news is that Delmarva Power does not anticipate any planned outages or road closures in the area while the construction is going on.
For interactive visual renderings of Delmarva Power’s reliability project, click here.
