Grant PUD Prepares for $58 Million Electrical System Upgrade

Grant PUD has a two year $58 million package of upgrades to the electric system from Royal City to Quincy and Ephrata planned for 2020. The upgrades would start mid 2020 with the goal of becoming more resilient to power outages along with gaining capacity for more customers.

"These are much needed upgrades to replace obsolete equipment, expand capacity for future growth and improve system resiliency to shortage outage time," said Christine Pratt, Grant PUD public information officer.

According to Pratt, the $58 million is a rough number and will be refined to a more accurate total in the upcoming weeks and months.

"The new projects include new substations for Royal City, south Ephrata and Quincy, rebuilds and expansion of existing outdated substations (the equipment dates to the 50s)," said Pratt. "And then it will add additional equipment to help us isolate outages so fewer people are affected and outages are shorter."

The funding is coming directly from the budget. As the county grows, so does the electrical system so the PUD budgets for this.

"We're at the point where we need to replace a lot of this equipment or expand it. We're excited about these upgrades, because they mean more power for customers who need it and more reliable power for other customers so it's a good deal and we're looking forward to building," said Pratt.