Sierra Pacific Power Company
Contact: Karl Walquist
Phone: (775) 834-3891

For Immediate Release

Construction has begun on a new electric substation and power line to improve the reliability and capacity of Elko's electric system. The $5.2 million project should be finished by September.

The Last Chance Substation will provide a second source of power to Elko, which currently gets all its electricity from the Adobe Substation in west Elko. At present, if the 120,000-volt (120-kV) transmission line that delivers power to the Adobe Substation from the Eight Mile Creek Substation northwest of Elko is knocked out of service, there's no alternative source of electricity for the area's 42,000 residents.

"These new facilities will pick up the slack anytime there's an outage affecting the Adobe Substation, which means more reliable service for our customers. We don't want a repeat of the extended outage that occurred early this year when vandals shot out insulators on the line that runs between the Eight Mile Creek and Adobe substations,"said Frank Gonzales, manager of Sierra Pacific Power Company's Eastern District, which includes Elko, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain and Lovelock.

The Last Chance Substation will provide enough additional electrical capacity to serve the community's needs for the next several years, Gonzales added.

Sierra Pacific construction crews built an access road to the substation site and began preliminary site work in May. Construction of nine miles of 120,000-volt electric transmission line between the Last Chance Substation and the Eight Mile Creek Substation will begin in June, Gonzales said.

Sierra Pacific serves approximately 15,000 customers in the Elko area. During 2000, the peak electric demand for the community (the most electricity required at any one time) was 42 megawatts. A single megawatt represents enough energy to serve approximately 650 households.