The new Fayette Substation is near Fent Road Northwest and Milledgeville-Jeffersonville Road Northwest, built on property owned by AES Ohio.
The project involved a 138 kilovolt (kV) extension southwest of the village of Jeffersonville in Fayette County. It was built on nearly 20 acres, with a 138kV extension requiring two single-circuit parallel lines of nearly a half-mile each, spanning from the substation to a 138kV delivery point, as company documents filed with the state describe the required infrastructure.
Substations convert electricity into different voltages, allowing electricity to be distributed to neighbourhoods and businesses.
And this is just the first phase of the project, AES Ohio said. Phase 2 involves constructing a new substation in Jeffersonville, set for completion in 2026, replacing an existing one. By 2028, AES Ohio expects to have networking substations in Fayette, Jeffersonville and Octa.
In all, AES Ohio invested $175 million in the project, a spokeswoman said.
The site expects to serve an estimated additional 140MVA (megavolt amperes) of new load.
Mary Ann Kabel, an AES Ohio spokeswoman, called the new substation a “mega-site.”
The utility committed to energize the new Honda-LGES EV battery plant “on time and on budget,” she said. It was a project that involved everybody in the utility, she said.
“It’s a milestone in our strategy for growth,” she said. “Ohio is growing, and we’re glad to have these companies here.”
The lines and infrastructure were to involve new poles of up to 195 feet in height, stretching from Milledgeville north through Fayette County, across part of lower Madison County to the southeastern corner of Clark County, according to a map on the utility’s web site showing the route for transmission equipment.
The Honda-LGES joint venture EV battery plant is expected to be complete by the end of 2024, starting mass production of lithium-ion battery cells by the end of 2025. The plant aims to have an annual production capacity of approximately 40GWh, Honda has said.
All batteries produced by the new joint venture will be supplied to Honda plants in North America to power EVs sold in North America.
Closer to the Dayton area, AES Ohio also built 138-kilovolt transmission lines north of the Dayton International Airport on North Montgomery County Line Road East.
Construction of those transmission lines was completed late last year. No new substation was involved in that project.
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