Components of the $71 million project include: construction of a new 138,000-volt transmission line stretching from the North Lake Geneva Substation in southern Walworth County to the Spring Valley Substation in western Kenosha County, construction of the new Balsam Substation along Wisconsin State Trunk Highway 50 in the town of Wheatland and construction of a new 69,000-volt transmission line to connect the new substation to the Twin Lakes Substation in Twin Lakes.
"There were several unique challenges in the planning of this project," said ATC Senior Project Manager Doug Berton. "In addition to addressing transmission reliability for the region, we also needed to consider the reconfiguration needs of the lower-voltage system. The Spring Valley-North Lake Geneva project now provides system redundancy and allows for maintenance outages when repairs are needed."
ATC also worked with its environmental contractor, Stantec, to re-vegetate areas along the route in addition to the perimeter of the substation with a pollinator-friendly seed mix. To date, the substation site has reached 70% re-vegetation, a scoring well-suited for pollinator habitat. ATC also funded the transplant of several dozen trees from the substation site to a local school as part of the Trees for Threes program with the Milwaukee Bucks.
"We appreciate the cooperation of area residents as we worked on this project, beginning with public involvement in 2013 to completing construction," said ATC Director of Environmental and Local Relations Gregory Levesque. "We will continue restoration on portions of the project in the coming months and continue monitoring pollinator habitats over the next several years."
Visit www.atc-projects.com for more information. A map of the project can be found here.
Formed in 2001 as the nation's first multi-state transmission-only utility, American Transmission Co. is a Wisconsin-based company that owns and operates 9,860 miles of electric transmission lines and 568 substations in portions of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois. Our transmission network enables the movement of electricity produced from all forms of generation resources to areas where it is needed - helping to keep the lights on, businesses running and communities strong. Visit our website at www.atcllc.com.
