Ameren Updating Outdated Infrastructure Downtown, Replacing A 1948 Substation
The electric power downtown never goes out because the lines are underground and not subject to storm damage like overhead wires, or so I thought. But Wednesday night many downtown did lose power, we didn’t thankfully. Old infrastructure was to blame. Though not the cause of Wednesday’s outage, the substation at 13th & Cole, built in 1948, is ready to be replaced.
Ameren has been planning to replace this substation for years, in January I unknowingly posted two pics related to their effort.
In late May my friend Kent Martin from Ameren’s communications department emailed me a pitch about their work to replace an old downtown substation and update the underground power grid. Seeing the 1951 image shown above I was interested, but busy prepping for my June 8th wedding. I wanted to see the old substation in person so we emailed back and forth but we couldn’t find a time to meet. Finally we agreed on Wednesday morning, but then postponed to Thursday morning so he could get one of Ameren’s Chevy Volt electric cars to pick me up, plus the weather would be nicer.
I’d gone by the old substation in my wheelchair Tuesday morning, and hours before the outage, I drove my husband by the old and new substations on our way home from dinner. Sitting on our balcony later we noticed the street lights on Locust go out. We still had power but soon a message was posted online about a power outage downtown. I thought I knew the problem, but it turns out a combination of problems at other locations led to the outage.
Still it drives home the point the infrastructure is old. How old? Over a century in some places!
I had no idea overhead wires were moved underground so early! So much of the trenching in downtown’s streets over the last 6-12 months has been replace old conduit and wire. The new substation being built on Dr. Martin Luther King between 19th & 20th will start going into use in late September and by April 2015 the old substation on Cole will be out of service.
I got to see the new and old substations yesterday.
The Cole substation will be razed next year, some remediation will be performed on the site. Ameren will retain & landscape the site.
— Steve Patterson
60 years ago everything was mechanical relays but these have not been used for over 20 years as they have been replaced by digital switchgear. This type of equipment should be routinely replaced as it ages and starts causing more reliability issues. The normal cycle is that these replacements are planned, budgeted for, scheduled, and replaced on an ongoing basis and is part of the normal utility life cycle. It sounds like Ameren is doing a dog and pony show to show people that they are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing. This what your electric rates cover.
I agree they’re doing what they should, next up is the substation at 11th & Spruce.
I live at Lucas Lofts, and we had a power outage over the winter due to a bad switch or something in the Globe Building across the street (Lucas Ave). Ameren was at least able to correct the problem the same day. They also brought us a new transformer over the winter immediately prior to the extremely cold weather due to concerns over the system capacity in the immediate vicinity (my building is all electric — no gas heat). They had intended to then subsequently move the transformer to an underground vault beneath Lucas Ave when they had time, but it is still sitting above ground. There is so little traffic on Lucas in this vicinity it’s not a huge deal, but the transformer is blocking off the street to at least some degree, and hopefully, they will eventually get around to relocating it below ground.
I’ve forwarded your comment to Ameren.