American Transmission Company energizes Spring Valley-North Lake Geneva Electric Reliability Project

American Transmission Company (ATC) said Tuesday that it has energized the Spring Valley-North Lake Geneva Electric Reliability Project, which electrically connects Kenosha County, Wis., with the Lake Geneva area.

The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin approved the 23-mile transmission line in March 2016, and construction began in 2017.

The $71 million project include the construction of a new 138,000-volt transmission line from the North Lake Geneva Substation in southern Walworth County to the Spring Valley Substation in western Kenosha County, construction of the new Balsam Substation in Wheatland and construction of a 69,000-volt transmission line from the new substation to the Twin Lakes Substation in Twin Lakes.

“There were several unique challenges in the planning of this project,” ATC Senior Project Manager Doug Berton said. “In addition to addressing transmission reliability for the region, we also needed to consider the reconfiguration needs of the lower-voltage system. The Spring Valley-North Lake Geneva project now provides system redundancy and allows for maintenance outages when repairs are needed.”

ATC noted that it worked with Stantec, its environmental contractor, to revegetate areas along the route and the perimeter of the substation with a pollinator-friendly seed mix. ATC also funded the transplant of several dozen trees from the substation site to a local school through the Trees for Threes program with the Milwaukee Bucks.

“We appreciate the cooperation of area residents as we worked on this project, beginning with public involvement in 2013 to completing construction,” ATC Director of Environmental and Local Relations Gregory Levesque said. “We will continue restoration on portions of the project in the coming months and continue monitoring pollinator habitats over the next several years.”