East Avenue Loop Transmission
Upgrade Project
FACTS
Burlington’s connection to VELCO transmission now is from two radial feeds,
one at Queen City, one at East Avenue substation.
The East Avenue substation feeds about 42 percent of the Burlington city
load. Loss of either the sole 115 KV line feeding the East Avenue Substation
or the East Avenue substation transformer results in Service interruption to
about 42 percent of BED’s load for as long as 1.5 hours while switching
occurs. Under peak conditions, if the gas turbine fails to start, 20% of
BED’s load could not be served and would remain out of service indefinitely.
McNeil power is now wheeled over GMP lines to get into the BED system, at
significant cost to BED ratepayers.
Failure of one of the Essex transformers serving GMP’s load overloads the
remaining transformer.
Loss of a single GMP 34.5 KV line causes overloads on other GMP 34.5 KV
lines putting additional load at risk. A fault on GMP’s 3307/3308 line would
result in service interruption for over 60 MW of area load in northern
Chittenden County.
Project Description
- Install (2) 115 KV circuits of single poles construction from Essex
to East Avenue & remove existing 115 kV line;
- Upgrade existing East Avenue VELCO substation;
- Build new
34.5 kV line from East Avenue to McNeil;
- Upgrade
McNeil substation;
- Relocate BED
Lake Street substation to McNeil;
-
Relocate/underground BED’s waterfront 13.8 KV distribution lines between
Moran Plant & Maple Street; and
- Rebuild
GMP’s Gorge substation.
This project will make the Essex to East Avenue 115 KV transmission line a
looped connection by providing a redundant source of power to East Avenue
substation.
This project will wheel power from East Avenue substation via a new 34.5
subtransmission line down to McNeil Substation. BED’s Lake Street substation
on the Waterfront will be relocated to McNeil. Subsequent to the
construction of this project, no wheeling charges will be charged for the
delivery of BED’s share of output from McNeil.
Reliability improvements:
A redundant source of power to East Avenue substation greatly improves
reliability in Burlington. It eliminates service interruption to BED
customers for a 115kV line failure and allows BED to re-energize all
customers in the event of a transformer failure with no unserved load.
The project provides a new capacity to serve load growth in GMP’s Chittenden
County service area & eliminates GMP’s transformer overloads during
contingencies.
Loss of a single GMP’s 34.5 kV line will no longer cause service
interruptions or overloads on other 34.5 kV lines.
Aesthetic improvements:
This project allows BED to underground/relocate its waterfront lines between
Moran Plant and Maple Street.
This project puts an underlying transmission system in place that will allow
GMP to consider removal of its waterfront lines after construction of the
Burlington Waterfront Project phase II projected to occur in year 2010.
BED will relocate its distribution circuit from Centennial Woods Natural
Area to University Road and will abandon this right of way allowing this
area to return to a natural state.
VELCO will abandon its second 150 feet, unused power line easement at
Centennial Woods.
For more information, please visit the following VELCO webpage:
Velco East
Avenue Loop Page
Burlington,
VT 05401-4891