LUB Notes Weather Impacts to Service, Annual Customer Stats

Lamar Light and Power Offices

Lamar Light Plant Superintendent, Houssin Hourieh, noted the board has been tracking the total number of connected customer meters since 1999 every May.  He told the board this past Tuesday, July 12^th, there were 5,777 connected meters for May 2022 for 4,063 customers.  The highest level was in 2003 with 5,836, and the lowest was in 2015 with 5,594.  Since then, Hourieh told the board, the plant has gained 183 connected meters.

Thursday, June 30^th, a windstorm moved into the area around 7pm, impacting the distribution system as four power poles broke between Crystal Street and Valco Road.  This caused a power outage to the entire west end circuit.  There were also several outages near the Santa Fe substation.  By nine pm, power was restored to all affected customers.  Power was lost on Friday, July 8^th at about 8:40am, when a pigeon shorted a main bus on the 69kv circuit.  The crew cleared the fault and power was restored by 9:20am.  Hourieh said the same day at 10:35pm, the plant lost a one-phase at the Santa Fe sub-station located at Hickory and 8^th Streets.  A primary fuse was blown, apparently due to an internal fault.  The caused the need to shut down that substation and transfer the load to another one.  Hourieh said the unit weighs 33,000 pounds and the plant was fortunate to have a spare.  The logistics in replacement were complicated due to the need for a special crane from the Denver area which could handle the weight.  He told the board the transformer is about 30 years old and there will be a cost of about $4,000 to run a diagnostic test to determine the cause of the fault.  A new replacement model is estimated at $200,000.

Line crews replaced two 40-foot wood poles on the well circuit south of Lamar and they have been installing raptor protection devices and lightning arrestors on the wind turbine’s 25kv powerline.  The electric maintenance crew connected a 90hp storm-water lift pump at Washington and 7^th Streets.

The Financial Statement for the Utility Board for the year ended December 31, 2021, was presented by Ron Farmer of rfarmer, llc, a certified public accounting and consulting firm.

The Lamar Utility Board approved purchase orders totaling $907,492.89 from a total for the month of $928,271.08.  This included the June ARPA estimate of $803,263.08 for the monthly power purchase estimate.  Total monthly bills were for $261,492.43.
By Russ Baldwin