A $2 million grant awarded recently to the Duck River Electric Membership Corp. in Shelbyville, Tennessee, will go toward a long-term project to extend smart grid improvements in the form of fiber communications in portions of Marion, Franklin and Coffee counties.
The utility got the largest single Appalachian Regional Commission grant of any of the 33 recipients named in the February release of funding that totaled more than $22.8 million in nine Appalachian states.
ARC GRANT RECIPIENTS
The Appalachian Regional Commission in February announced $22,850,130 in grants for 33 recipients in nine states.ALABAMA: Tuscaloosa $1,459,335KENTUCKY: 10 recipients, $10,231,769Lexington $1,677,529Paintsville $1,500,000Richmond $1,463,927Hazard $1,461,078Somerset $1,301,983Berea $1,000,000Hindman $867,582Hazard $833,670Vanceburg $76,000Littcarr $50,000NEW YORK: Dunkirk $60,000NORTH CAROLINA: Two recipients, $196,573Morganton $98,300Raleigh $98,273OHIO: McArthur, $49,000PENNSYLVANIA: Three recipients, $2,174,730Clarion $1,100,000Youngsville $1,014,730Ridgeway $60,000TENNESSEE: Three recipients, $2,759,965Shelbyville $2,147,125Knoxville $577,840Lawrence County $35,000VIRGINIA: Four recipients, $2,296,533Abingdon $1,250,000Abingdon $486,769Bland County $459,764Abingdon $100,000WEST VIRGINIA: Eight recipients, $3,622,225Charleston $1,020,556Charleston $1,000,000Wheeling $796,924Morgantown $485,284Hurricane $100,000Washington, D.C., $80,691Huntington $79,270Fayetteville $59,500Source: Appalachian Regional Commission
"This project will help enable our internet service provider partners to provide affordable broadband access to 1,202 businesses and 2,876 households in Franklin, Coffee and Marion Counties, three DREMC-served counties that are also in the ARC footprint," Duck River key accounts coordinator Teresa Sampson said in a statement. "While DREMC does not have plans currently to become an [internet service provider], we do want to be part of the solution in helping get high-speed broadband access to our service area."
Carol Garrette, member services manager for Duck River, said Thursday the $2,147,125 ARC grant will fund portions of phase 2 of an ongoing, long-term project to extend fiber from Shelbyville to Manchester in early phases and then into Franklin and Marion counties in later phases.
"We have built [the loop] from our Shelbyville area over to our Columbia area, that's phase 1. That's about 73 miles of fiber in the air and lit," Garrette said of work started in 2017. "Shelbyville over to Manchester is part of the 96-mile phase 2."
The internal loop portion of the multi-phase fiber system project is 330 to 350 miles long at an estimated cost of $15 million, and the work will be done in four to five phases, she said.
The loop project "is connecting all our offices and our substations, but we're putting in dark fiber as we install so that if there are internet service providers who want to take advantage of us having invested in some of the fiber, they can tap into our line and go from there," she said.
Duck River hopes to woo local internet service providers to join forces for wider broadband access through the fiber project.
"We have had interest from several ISPs and, in fact, we're working on contracts with a couple of them," Garrette said. "They would tap into our dark fiber, lease that from us, and that lessens their investment a bit. That way we're kind of sharing in the investment."
Duck River's is the second tech-boosting grant the area has gotten in the last five months. Ben Lomand Connect in Grundy County got a $1.8 million USDA grant in November to expand its fiber coverage to more than 250 customers along the Marion-Franklin county line.
Ben Lomand is a prime example of a potential partner, Garrette said.
"We are excited to hopefully partner with Ben Lomand to help get fiber to homes," she said. "We've had a lot of communications with Ben Lomand."
The grant comes through the ARC's Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization initiative, also known as POWER. POWER is a congressionally funded initiative to help communities and regions that have been affected by job losses in coal mining, coal power plant operations, and coal-related supply chain industries due to the changing economics of America's energy production.
"Since a large part of DREMC's service area is in very rural areas, there is a critical need for broadband to be made available to our members," Sampson said. "We get it; economic development is a key part of our mission as an electric cooperative, and broadband access has become fundamental in our modern day."
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.