New infrastructure enhancements now in place are expected to help improve the way power outages impact the Town of Kingsville.
A second hydro feed to the town has been successfully commissioned by ENWIN and E.L.K. Energy.
Prior to this project, Kingsville relied on a single feeder from Hydro One, leaving the community vulnerable to full outages.
The new dual-feed system splits the load evenly, ensuring either line can power the entire area during disruptions, reducing potential impacts to just half the town.
Chief Operation Officer for the Hydro Division of ENWIN Utilities Jim Brown says it will let them enable swift manual switching for minimal downtime.
"In the past, if anything happened to that single feeder, then the whole town suffered an outage," he says. "Now, if anything happens to either one of those feeders, only half the town will suffer an outage."
In the future, ENWIN hopes to have the system move to automated smart switching technology upgrades.
Brown says if they do experience an outage on one of the supply feeders, they can still supply the town from the other feeder.
"Which means people in the town won't necessarily have to suffer for, who knows, a six- to eight-hour outage while Hydro One discovers the problem and maybe fixes it," he says.
Brown says the power supply to the town will have a much greater level of reliability, resulting in fewer and shorter outages.
"It also provides for additional economic growth in the area, in the town. It provides both reliability and the potential to increase loads in the town as necessary as the town grows," he says.
The work on the second feeder line was launched by E.L.K. Energy prior to ENWIN acquiring and assuming full management of the utility.
E.L.K. serves about 13,000 customers across parts of Essex, Lakeshore, and Kingsville.