Monday, April 29, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Pahrump, more power to it -- much more.
The Valley Electric Association, which provides power to the rural community 65 miles west of Las Vegas, last week threw the switch to energize a 230-kilovolt transmission line.
The new line replaces a 138-kilovolt line that went into service 33 years ago and can no longer handle the capacity of the ever-growing Nye County community. The old line, running parallel to the new line from Lovell Wash to Pahrump, now will serve as a backup system.
"What this new line will do is provide a much more reliable source of electricity," said VEA General Manager Lou Holveck, noting that the region was not suffering power outages on the old line.
"We were rapidly approaching capacity of the original line and would not have been able to serve additional growth."
He said in the event of growth exceeding an electric company's ability to provide power, customers would have had to deal with low voltage problems.
Also, under such circumstances, it may have been necessary to actually turn off parts of the town for brief periods, Holveck said. That, however, will not occur thanks to the new line.
The project began in the late 1980s.
"We just started to see the growth coming," Holveck said. "You see there will be twice as many people, you know there will be twice as much load."
The new line, with power flowing from the federal government's Mead Substation in Boulder City -- a distance of about 85 miles -- will serve 8,000 VEA customers with more than 10,000 electrical meters.
VEA customers have increased by about 10 percent a year since the late 1980s, as many Southern Nevadans buy homes in the Pahrump area in search of a quieter lifestyle that is quickly vanishing in Las Vegas and surrounding communities.
An estimated 18,000 to 20,000 people live in the Pahrump Valley.
The 230-kilovolt line is equivalent to 230,000 volts. It has a power load capacity of about 360 megawatts, which is the equivalent of 360,000 kilowatts. That is enough power to light 3.6 million 100-watt light bulbs.
The project was completed at a cost of $12.5 million -- $7.5 million below the original estimate, VEA officials said.
Installation of the new line by contractor Jobline Construction of Spokane, Wash., began last June 26 with the erection of the first power pole off Interstate 15 south of Jean. About 600 poles were installed for the new line.
archive
