FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (June 9, 2011) - In 2004, Fort Meade followed a government initiative to privatize utilities on the installation and partnered with the local utilities company, Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.
Since then, BGE has upgraded 75 percent of the installation's gas and electrical systems.
BGE has nearly completed 90 percent of the area south of Mapes Road, between Routes 32 and 175, said BGE project manager Todd Lakatos.
"Pretty much all the buildings are done," he said. "There's still street-light work taking place and smaller things that were not in the original building list."
During the upgrades, new underground gas and electrical lines are being installed. The electric lines will be encased in concrete, said Bill McCann, an electrical engineer at the Directorate of Public Works,. The encasement will prevent residents and construction workers from hitting the cable when digging.
To accommodate the additional electric power requirements due to growth on the installation, BGE is also constructing a new substation at the corner of Rock Avenue and Leonard Wood Avenue. The substation's power will be supplied by BGE's 115 kilo-volt line that runs on the south side of Route 32. The high-voltage power will be converted to distribution voltage, which will be fed through the new underground lines across Fort Meade.
Lakatos said there are future capacities built into the station. "[Fort Meade will] have a reliable and safe system," he said.
Prior to privatization, electric power was distributed by overhead lines. Lines buried underground, however, will minimize power outages caused by weather, said McCann.
Although the new system is not impenetrable, it is designed in a loop, which will isolate power problems and contain them from spreading. When an overhead line goes down, an entire area is affected. But with the new system, a series of switch gears will prevent the outage from spreading beyond the isolated location.
"You don't have to wait for a repair to be done to get power back to mostly everybody," McCann said. "In the other areas that are hooked to that feeder, [BGE] can go around and manually switch people back in -- [an estimated] 80 percent can get back in."
In the event of a problem at the substation, feeder lines can now receive power from substations outside the installation.
"[Fort Meade] will be tied with the overall BGE system," Lakatos said.
However, Lakatos said there are overhead lines outside of Fort Meade that are susceptible to problems with downed lines.
Lakatos predicts that improvements outside residential areas will be funded and completed in fiscal year 2012 and only a small percentage of work will carry into 2013.
"We're pretty confident that by 2012 we should have everything designed and funded," he said.
Fort Meade office and commercial areas have hit a few delays with the Base Realignment and Closure process, McCann said. New buildings, such as the 1.1 million-square-foot Defense Information Systems Agency, were not in BGE's original designs for the upgrades but are latching onto the new BGE system.
"Fort Meade is seeing a doubling of [the] load [during] the period of time that we're putting the system in," McCann said. "That's created a lot of delay."
Pending funding, BGE will begin a five-year plan this summer to install upgrades in the housing areas.
New services will be installed in 1,770 Picerne family housing units. Picerne has constructed about 800 new homes that already have BGE gas and electric service.
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