A federal utility provider with more than 10,000 customers across central Arizona will conduct two studies around power outages.
The San Carlos Irrigation Project (SCIP) tells ABC15 that they have approximately 102 damaged power poles across various locations of their service area.
SCIP is run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs which serves customers on the San Carlos Indian Reservation, Gila River Indian Reservation, and homes outside of reservation boundaries.
This includes communities across central Arizona from Coolidge and Casa Grande to areas in Pima County.
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A spokesperson for the BIA says they are working on two studies to lower the number of customers affected by distribution outages, “The first is a load flow model that will assist engineers with creating relay settings to protect the power lines leading to substations,” an email read, “The second is a coordination study which will add protection to reduce the affected areas.”
The studies are expected to be used to determine where the best places are to add fuses or switches downstream of substations with the hope of helping reduce the affected areas of an outage.
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SCIP attributes repeated power outages this past summer to various reasons from vehicle accidents, and wildfires, to monsoon thunderstorms. In total, they estimate that crews are working to replace 102 damaged poles including:
- 20 poles were destroyed in the Watch Fire on the San Carlos Reservation. The fire destroyed several structures. When those are rebuilt, SCIP will rebuild the powerline facilities
- 40 poles were destroyed in the Freeman Fire near the Oracle Junction. SCIP crews are working on replacing these poles which provide services to two private ranches.
- 28 poles are in the process of being replaced throughout the service area that were damaged during the summer monsoon season. A required archeological clearance is underway. When cleared, lineman can begin replacing those poles.
- 14 poles were downed due to severe weather in the Florence area Aug. 22. SCIP has established a contract with Native American Transformer to replace poles. The contractor should have all poles replaced August, 24
SCIP does not generate its own power because the bureau said they do not have access to enough water to generate hydropower anymore. Instead, they buy power from the Western Area Power Administration and the Southwest Public Power Agency power pool and re-sell it directly to more than 13,000 customers. SCIP has not been able to generate its own power for decades, citing a significant flood event at Coolidge Dam in 1983 that eliminated the hydropower generation facilities.
