A workshop earlier this month was for the purpose of addressing the most pressing needs for the Greeneville Energy Authority.
At the time the GEA Board and GEA President and CEO Dwayne Wells discussed in depth the financials related to those needs and discussed options for moving forward as it pertained to projected costs.
OPTIONS PRESENTED IN MARCH
Wells presented four options for moving forward as it pertains to projected costs:
Option 1 – Tusculum rebuild and circuits outside the fence – $14,227,000 minus money already spend for transformers – $12,950,000 total
Option 2 – Tusculum rebuild above plus the BEAD areas at $20,623,000 (will recover around $10.9 million back at a later day which could be used for furthering the broadband expansion – $34,580,000
Option 3 – All of the above plus the additional 291 miles of fiber optic for the remainder of the county – $48,218,000
Option 4 – All of the above plus the warehouse building construction of $6.4 million – $54,000,000 bond issuance
BOARD SELECTS OPTION 4
The GEA Board Tuesday approved Option 4, which will require a bond issuance not to exceed $54 million dollars.
This will allow for necessary improvements to the Tusculum Substation, the Broadband business plan which will allow for quicker completion of the BEAD Grant funding and the remaining 291 miles of fiber optic for the entire county, and construction of a new building at the West Andrew Johnson warehouse location.
DWAYNE WELLS
TUSCULUM SUBSTATION
There are four single phase units at the Tusculum site currently. GEA has already made a $1.3 million partial payment on the purchase of two three phase units to replace the 60+ year old units. The Tusculum site, which already serves around 30% of GEA customers, will be supplying electricity for all the additional state and county owned properties on the Greene Valley site.
BEAD GRANTS AND FUNDING
Greeneville Energy Authority Director of Broadband Phil Bradley had been was joined online by representatives with Vantage Point Solutions during the work session earlier in the month to present numbers related to the business case for the county wide build out of the fiber optic system, including anticipated costs moving forward over the next several years. Those projections are to be presented to the state comptroller’s office for approval before GEA can actually move forward with the project.
WAREHOUSE FACILITY
Also during the workshop , Wells presented initial improvement plans for the GEA warehouse property on West Andrew Johnson Highway. Following construction in 1974, around 48 employees were there in 1989, compared to around 80 currently. A new 9,000 square foot, two story addition at a cost of $6.4 million will be included in the bond issuance monies.
