GMU announces electrical upgrades

For the last several years, Greenfield Municipal Utilities has been planning for a much-needed electrical distribution system upgrade at their north substation. Last week they were able to begin work on that project.

This upgrade involves replacing two transformers at the north substation with larger transformers which will allow GMU to better serve their customers during times when distribution system maintenance needs to be completed. These larger transformers will allow them to continue serving all GMU customers without disruption in the event that any of their substation transformers must be taken offline for any reason.

Currently, one of the transformers has been disconnected and the contractor is working to remove the disconnected transformer so the site can be prepared for the new transformer to be installed when it arrives.

The first transformer is anticipated to arrive in April and should be operational by mid-May if the project stays on track. The second transformer is scheduled to be installed around October.

“While we don’t anticipate any issues during this process, we do want our customers to be aware that if we were to encounter any significant event or any kind of infrastructure damage, we could face issues with restoring power in our normal response time,” a press release from GMU read. “This could include any significant weather events, infrastructure damage from distribution equipment being hit while digging, any accident that may involve distribution equipment, and many other scenarios.”

GMU currently has their system operating on a different feed path than normal due to being down the disconnected transformer. This could result in a longer recovery time to restore power as the crew may have extra steps with this alternate feed path.

GMU said they will continue to update customers on the status of the project as it progresses.

Questions may be directed to Office Administrator Jessica Foster at 844-580-0810 or jessica. foster@gmu-ia.com.