Give credit where credit is due. The renovation of the City of Powell’s Vining Substation is complete, and the project came in on time and close to budget.

On a Saturday morning in June 2019, the substation suddenly shut down. As the only substation serving Powell, the entire city was without power.

City electricians arrived and followed procedures to restore power. But when they flipped a circuit breaker back on, there was an explosion. The breaker was next to some regulators filled with oil, which acts as a coolant. The explosion ignited the oil, which caused flames to leap out of the equipment. The city was without power for the next several hours.

Powell leaders realized they would need to renovate the substation, which was running on 30-year-old equipment.

By September 2019, the city was interviewing engineers for the project. At the time, City Administrator Zack Thorington said the expectation was that the cost estimates and designs would be complete by summer 2020, and then it would be a year or two before the project was complete. The initial cost estimate was $2.9 million dollars. This was a pretty large project for Powell. For comparison, the widening of Absaroka Street cost $4.25 million.

To pay for the substation renovation, the city secured a $1.5 million low-interest loan from the State Loan and Investment Board and financed much of the rest of the project from the city’s enterprise funds, supported by fees paid for electrical service.

After the fire, the city conducted a series of repairs so the aging substation could remain operational while the upgrades were completed, which required lengthy planned outages over three nights. When construction was underway, the city had more planned outages in October 2021 to connect the first of two 20-megawatt transformers.

Since the initial repairs, city crews have had to balance the electrical demands of the city with the substation’s limited capacity. When summer temperatures soared into triple digits last year, we had only a couple unplanned outages. The lights stayed on during the energy-intensive Park County Fair.

Earlier this month, the city conducted the last planned outage to do final testing of the new equipment at the substation. The tests were successful and no problems were found.

Electrical Superintendent Steve Franck said all that remains is putting together a final punch list for the contractor.

The substation now has two 20-megawatt transformers, which doubles its capacity and will accommodate future population growth.

The final price tag was around $3.1 million — which is pretty close to the original cost estimates — and it was completed within the original timeframe. All this was done through the pandemic, when supply chains crumbled and equipment costs soared.

The city had an infrastructure problem and addressed it within its budget and in a reasonable timeframe. Good job.