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Socorro Electric Cooperative (SEC) held a members update meeting at Magdalena Schools on Thursday night, drawing in 50 attendees. Manuel Gonzales, SEC’s CEO, led a discussion on the Magdalena 69KV project, power outages and fiber.
Gonzales said two additional outages will need to occur after the scheduled power outage on Friday. He assured them they would do their best to consider the weather and the community’s needs with at least five days’ advance notice.
Line Superintendent Jason Otero explained that since they postponed an outage last week, they are behind schedule and looking at potentially having two outages on two days in a row.
Gonzales explained the urgency of finishing the 69kV project, which covers the 28 miles between Socorro and Magdalena, before the winds in March by the end of February.
“If we don’t meet this (time line), the structures that are put in place there right now could fail,” Gonzales said.
He said the current poles and wires have served their time and it was essential to replace them as soon as possible. Gonzales said he understood people’s concerns about the project planning and agreed the planning was problematic.
“The planning, I can see holes and gaps, and again, we’re going to do a full review and see what the heck happened... This is unacceptable,” Gonzales said.
He said the project includes a new Magdalena substation with advanced data acquisition capabilities.
“We’re going to be done with the Magdalena sub update right now. We currently have two feeders that are already energized and serving Magdalena and the surrounding areas. This is history,” Gonzales said. “The quicker we know this data, the quicker we pinpoint outages.”
The project will also be done in conjunction with the installation of fiber broadband by Red Bolt.
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“In conjunction with that 69kV rebuild, there’s fiber being strung along with it for two reasons, fiber for our SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), and fiber to under served areas where, if you look around, you don’t see the big guys here. So only in the cooperative world do rural communities band together via their cooperative to bring fiber to the homes,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales said he considered the linemen of SEC heroes.
He said the electric co-op he used to work for had a 5,750 square mile territory with 32 substations and 61 linemen. They have 10,000 square miles of territory at the SEC and only ten linemen.
“It’s a very small crew. It’s a very big challenge; they are very committed,” Gonzales said, “Our vision is to look at our personnel and see how, given our situation, we can strategically position and get our manpower out there. But I can tell you, it will never be due to a lack of commitment. Our Linemen are some of the most committed linemen I’ve ever seen. They work in all hours of the night.”
He explained that with the recent unplanned outages at the end of December and the beginning of January, they identified areas between Socorro and Magdalena where wires were bending in the wind.
He said they assessed the situation and came up with a solution of installing standoffs, “so when the wind blows, now it’s contained to that certain area.”
“So we’re going to make sure we do everything we can to keep the power on because we know it’s cold right now. We’re in up against the March time frame and the real wind,” Gonzales said.
Two residents of Alamo expressed concern about the outages and the impact on residents, especially older adults and those on oxygen and asked if the SEC could provide alternative energy sources such as solar panels, windmills, or generators during the outages.
Gonzales said SEC doesn’t provide generators for members.
Otero confirmed that Alamo poles will not be replaced during this project because many had already been replaced.
“Two years ago, we had a company go in there and inspect all the poles. By doing that, what they do is they check the rotting of the bottom of the pole, or if it’s buried, if it’s cracked or rotted, or if anything wrong with the conductor,” Otero said, “I was running that crew and we replaced quite a bit of poles on that Alamo line installment.”
Gonzales said the situation wasn’t ideal due to the outages, the weather, and the urgency of the project.
“Communication is the key. Why? It allows you all to prepare whether it’s oxygen tanks, extra wood, or whatever the case would be... There’s a lot of things that we want to do, but it’s all geared towards how we can respond better,” Gonzales said.
