Cleveland Utilities awarded $250,000 grant

Bart Borden, electric division manager for Cleveland Utilities
Bart Borden, electric division manager for Cleveland Utilities

CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- Cleveland Utilities will receive a $250,000 disaster grant from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to create another electrical service line for the Michigan Road Avenue area, which was affected by tornadoes in April 2011.

In a recent meeting, Bart Borden, vice president of the electric division, reviewed the proposed project and its funding with Cleveland Utilities board members.

photo Bart Borden, electric division manager for Cleveland Utilities
photo Ken Webb, chief financial officer for Cleveland Utilities

The grant, which will require $201,000 in matching funds, will be used to build a tie line along Peach Orchard Hill Road, Borden said.

"The new tie line from Benton Pike to Michigan Avenue will provide an alternate electrical feed to the Michigan Road Avenue area -- which serves industrial, commercial and residential loads -- for service redundancy," he said.

In addition to these customers, the project also supports service to the Cleveland Regional Jetport, a key city asset, he said.

Borden said the project, which extends more than two miles and includes steel power poles, is expected to be completed in 18 months.

In other business, Cleveland Utilities has launched comprehensive efforts to convert 30,000 customer water meters to new wireless "smart meters."

From May 18 to May 22, two contract work crews replaced 438 traditional registers with transmitter-based equipment, said Craig Mullinax, vice president of the water division.

The first phase of the project converted meters on two water-reading routes, he said.

The meter conversion project has been accelerated with a $2.5 million loan offered through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

The money will fund the conversion of 15,000 water meters and shorten the timeframe of the project to about three years, which is about half as long as anticipated otherwise, according to Ken Webb, CEO and president of Cleveland Utilities.

In addition to shortening the automated meter implementation process, the terms of the 20-year fixed rate TDEC loan include $500,000 in principal loan forgiveness, Webb said.

Utility officials said the water division began an in-house pilot conversion program over a year ago. About 1,300 meters were converted through internal efforts as of December 2014.

Mullinax has praised the benefits of the automated meters, citing their usefulness in alerting the water division to customer leaks, bursts and other problems that might otherwise go undetected until a monthly manual reading was done on the old meters.

In September 2012, the electric division completed a similar project involving metering devices for 30,000 customers.

Paul Leach is based in Cleveland. Email him at paul.leach.press@gmail.com.

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