Electricity project to increase power supply in city’s northeast

Alberta power lines in an undated photo. (CTV News Edmonton)

A previous version of this story stated the project received approval last fall. It was approved this past March. — A parcel of land adjacent to a northside highway will soon be home to a new electricity substation that the city’s utilities provider says is part of one of the largest electrical grid updates in Edmonton history.

Epcor’s City of Edmonton Transmission Reinforcement (CETR) project received approval from the province’s utilities commission in March, allowing it to move ahead with construction of the substation north of Yellowhead Trail at 125 Avenue and 62 Street, nine kilometres of new transmission lines and connecting power lines both above ground and underground.

Mansur Bitar, Epcor’s group vice-president for transmission, said Thursday that the Alberta Electric System Operator identified the need for the project “some time ago” as “the needs of the system continue to grow.”

Bitar said Epcor “proactively planned for this growth” because of an increased demand for electricity and because of aging infrastructure.

“This allows us to replace things on a planned basis rather than reacting to failures that may occur,” Bitar told media at the site of the future Fort Road substation, which will replace the Kennedale substation.

He said the $398-million CETR project is “the most significant build” Epcor has ever had in its system.

Of the nine kilometres of new transmission lines, five kilometres will be of high voltage and laid underground along Yellowhead Trail into Hermitage Park, where it will tie into the existing electrical infrastructure, Bitar said.

Construction for the project is slated to begin this summer and be completed by 2029.

Epcor says it consulted with about 19,000 people in the area over the last three years about the project, and discussed it directly with 1,000 nearby businesses and residents.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti and Dave Mitchell