HARBOR SPRINGS — Growing tourism is forcing one Northern Michigan community to add on to their electrical grid to keep up with increased demand.
The city of Harbor Springs is in the process of adding a second substation, to help keep up with the electrical needs of the people who live there and avoid brownouts during the summer season.
Acting city manager Lucas Vanderzee said when July and August hits, they’re at peak demand for electricity. He said there are a lot of people who have second homes in the community.
“It’s just when everybody is here all at once and all the homes are occupied; it really increases the residential side of our demand. We don’t have the capacity. The way we’re structured right now to not have brownouts. This is something that has been needed to be done for decades,” said VanderZee.
He said that can cause brown outs.
“That’s when the voltage coming into your home from the utility lines is actually lower than what’s adequate to fully power your appliances and lights. So, they might seem dim, or the refrigerator might stop working, things like that,” said VanderZee.
He also said bigger homes, electric vehicles, and just more appliances in general are other factors increasing demand.
City clerk Nick Whitaker said they have designs, plans, and a location of the substation nailed down, now they are looking at cost.
“I don’t know the exact dollar amount. We have approved the ability for the city to issue bonds up to $8 million,” said Whitaker.
Whitaker said Harbor Springs owns the electric company and funding for the substation will come from user fees so electric rates will go up.
“We’re going to do a rate study now with a private firm that will say, ‘All right, here’s our estimated annual payment for that and done for regular electric fund operations,” said Whitaker.
VanderZee said he knows it comes with a hefty price tag, but it’s been on the city’s radar for years to be upgraded.
“I would say it would be a common problem in a small utility like ours. As housing sizes get bigger. There’s more electrical demand on the system. And we are kind of spread out,” VanderZee said.
He said the increase would be between 3% to 5% over the next 3 to 5 years.
Rather than hitting everybody at once with a 12% or 15% rate increase, we’re going to try to structure it so that it increases over a longer period of time. That depends on our rate study,” said VanderZee.
Even with the rate increase, Vanderzee said they will still be lower than surrounding utilities charge
Whitaker said it beats the alternative.
“We will have people without power, or we’ll have to put bans on air conditioners and only do certain things at certain times of the day,” said Whitaker.