Ameren putting finishing touches on $84 million upgrade in Cape

Two years after Ameren Missouri broke ground on its $84 million substation and transition-line project, the energy provider is preparing to call the job complete.

The project began in December 2014, when Ameren constructed the Heritage substation on Ameren-owned land south of Route K, followed later by another substation called Hitt.

The company created a 345-kilovolt transmission line to serve Heritage from the Lutesville substation.

The two new line segments are named Lutesville-Heritage and Hitt-Cape Clark.

Ameren also created a six-mile, 34-kilovolt sub-transmission line from the Cape Clark to an existing sub-transmission line.

New metal pole structures have replaced most of the existing wooden poles, and technology has been upgraded, said Bob Dixon, director of the Ameren Missouri Southeast Missouri Division.

The new station and substation are complete and active, Dixon said, and the lines are in service.

What’s left is cleanup and the transfer of power lines from old poles to the new ones.

“So you’ll see work lingering on, cleanup work, a little restoration work and things,” Dixon said, “but the new station and the main feeds are in service now.”

Ameren began the project as an effort to upgrade aging infrastructure.

The previous system was more than 50 years old.

“And it’s somewhat unique to our system,” Dixon said. “It’s the only one of that design.”

Dixon said the system was reaching the end of its life, and the two-year project allowed Ameren to align this region’s system with others.

The substation, controls and most of the utility poles were built to withstand seismic activity, which Dixon said is one way reliability has been improved through the project.

“The new equipment allows us to have a more robust system,” Dixon said. “If we have problems with one station, we have the ability to feed around it, just like cars being detoured around a traffic jam.”

On the subject of traffic jams, Dixon said the remaining work to complete the project — transferring wires, removing poles — should not affect the flow of traffic.

“There may be a lane closure, but no major disruption,” Dixon said.

Throughout the process, Dixon said, the company has tried to be cognizant of how construction affects traffic.

“If we did have to close a road, it was often done in the middle of the night, where the impact was very minimal to folks,” Dixon said.

While Cape Girardeau and Scott counties are the primary areas the new system serves, because of the ability to reroute power as needed, the program has the potential to affect more than 34,000 customers across the Southeast Missouri region, Dixon said.

Dixon thanked the city and county of Cape Girardeau, the Missouri Department of Transportation and local businesses for their help on the project over the last two years.

“Ameren Missouri really is concerned about reliability. We invest quite a bit into our state, and this is just one example,” Dixon said. “You think about the businesses and the ability to attract new industries — a lot of it is based on the ability to have reliable energy. That’s what this is all about.”

bbrown@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630