Sioux Falls Light and Power

Volume 7Issue 2March 2017

Hometown

Volume 7Issue 2March 2017

This month I had the pleasure of meeting with Sioux Falls Light and Power. I was excited to clear up my confusion of just how Sioux Falls Municipal Electric supplies power to just some of Sioux Falls. Light and Power Superintendent Jerry Jongeling and his staff were excited to show me the history of their building as well as explaining which areas of Sioux Falls are in their service area.

Superintendent Jongeling explained to me that their service territory is land locked and covers a large area of northern Sioux Falls to downtown. It is scattered at times and there could be different providers on the same city block. They serve around 2,700 customers with 600 commercial services. The rest being residential including homes and apartments. They also maintain about 20,000 street lights are working on replacing the lights with LED. At this point, they have replaced about 430 with LED and have received a grant from Heartland Consumers Power District for $5000 towards the replacement of the lights.

Speaking of lights, the Sioux Falls Light and Power also maintains the lights on the 300 yard tunnel on 57th Street that goes under the interstate and that tunnel is also getting new lights. Curretnly there are 284 HP Sodium lights than have an annual cost of around $50,000. Sioux Falls Light and Power is replacing those 284 and will be able to reduce the amount of lights to 140 LED lights.

Sioux Falls Light and Power is also implimenting AMI (Census) and is in the process of a pilot project of 75 meters with 3 billing cycles to test the project and will move forward if it checks out to their standards.

Superintendent Jongeling also mentionted some upgrades to their Transimission lines. Currently they are 69,000 Volts and will be putting in 115,000 Volt lines to the south transmission line in 2016 and plan on doing the north lines in 2017. Sioux Falls Light and Power also plans on putting in a new sub station in 2018 or 2019.

The history of their building was also very interesting. What was once a corn canery in the 1800’s was transformed to an electrical generating facility in the early 1930’s and still has the generators in the building. Superintendent Jongeling took me through the basement and showed me they old parts for working on the generators.

I had a great time learning about the Sioux Falls Light and Power department and I am excited to go back to talk to them more about their history and future. If anyone would like to check out their facility, Jerry said “Anyone is more than welcome to stop by”. Thanks to Jerry and his staff for showing my why their HOMETOWN is great.

Questions? Comments? Email me at Call Chris: 605-770-6299

Volume 7Issue 2March 2017