Preferred and alternate routes for east ring-line upgrades has been filed with the provincial regulators, the city's electrical distribution department has announced.--News File Photo
@MedicineHatNews
A plan to double capacity of lines bringing power from the north end of the city to the south along the eastern boundary has been submitted to Alberta utility regulators.
The City of Medicine Hat’s distribution department wants to upgrade 40-year-old power lines as part of a ring reinforcement project announced last year.
Public information sessions followed this spring and summer, and now the Alberta Utilities Commission will evaluate the proposal.
The application, filed Monday, shows two preferred and alternate routes in the north and south that would carry power either through the Northlands neighbourhood or along Altawana Drive, and along S. Boundary Road or the Trans-Canada Highway.
In the north, the line that runs along Rotary Centennial Drive would jog south at 11th Avenue in the preferred route, before heading east at 20th Street to rejoin the existing right of way at Altawana Drive.
There it would connect to existing lines that run through a portion of the community of Parkview, while an alternate proposal would be to carry the line along the curve of Altawana Drive to the 20th Street NE intersection.
The line then runs east, and eventually back to South Ridge via mainly Range Roads 52 and 53 in Cypress County.
It would head west at Township Road 122 to the city limits. There, a preferred route would see it travel a right of way extending from the continuation of S. Boundary Road and that road itself to 16th Avenue.
An alternate route would carry it along the Trans-Canada Highway inside city limits, before moving south behind car dealerships and Holy Family Catholic Church near 16th Avenue to join the South Ridge substation on 16th Avenue.
If approved, the 24-kilometre line would be doubled in capacity by the end of 2029.
No schedule for a decision or feedback has yet been provided by the AUC.
