Middletown to experience a four-hour blackout Thursday morning

Middletown will be without power for four hours early Thursday morning while Delmarva Power tests its 138-kilovolt relays that connect to the town’s electric substation.

It's a situation Middletown Mayor Ken Branner says the town needs to live with for now because it is federally mandated.

"We've notified every business in Middletown about the blackout and have reached out to the residents in as many ways as possible to let them know this is happening," he said. "It's not ideal for anyone who lives in Middletown."

Because Middletown currently only has the one 138 KV relay connection, power will be cut from 2-6 a.m.Thursday morning for testing that is mandated to take place every three years.

But in the near future, that won't be a factor for Middletown residents.

A second 138,000-kilovolt transmission line is currently being installed to run from the Townsend substation to the Middletown substation and will be an insurance policy against future blackouts when it goes online later this year.

The new line will follow the west side of Levels Road coming out of the Townsend substation on Dogtown Road and will proceed down the 100-foot town-owned easement, then through Charles Price Park and into the Middletown substation.

The existing 138 KV line comes out of Delmarva Power's Mt. Pleasant substation and into Middletown's substation.

Middletown is a member of the Delaware Municipal Electric Corporation, which allows the town to benefit from economy of scale for different services, such as the addition of the redundant line.

DEMEC is paying the bond for the project up front and Middletown will pay it off over time.

"The second 138 KV line in Middletown is really to make sure that the town can provide uninterrupted power to the community," said DEMEC Senior Vice President of Operations & Power Kimberly Schlichting. "For public power, reliability is the utmost concern for us. Not only do we want to give it to them, our customers demand it, especially the commercial and industrial customers."

The town experienced a 48-hour blackout in the early 2000s when severe weather knocked out power to the entire town. That event and the town's growth led to earnest conversations about adding a second 138 KV relay line into the Middletown substation.

Had the redundant line been in place then, the town wouldn't have experienced the long blackout, nor would it have to endure the four-hour interruption of power while Delmarva Power tests the line.

While discussions have taken place for years after the blackout – there was never a second blackout – the Town of Middletown really got serious when it adopted a resolution in January 2012 that called for $0.005 per kilowatt-hour, or half of a penny, increase in bills to pay for the second line.

The total cost of the town's electric infrastructure improvements is estimated at $14.8 million, which includes $11.2 million for the second transmission line that will be operated and maintained by Delmarva Power & Light.

Middletown is currently wrapping up the purchase of easements along the line's proposed route, at which point installation work will begin.

Reach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.

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