The Pend Oreille County Public Utility District has awarded a $1.5 million contract to Potelco Inc., of Sumner, Wash., to build a 115-kilovolt power transmission line between the district's Diamond Lake substation and a lot where it will build its planned Bare Mountain substation.

The district already has bought poles, insulators, and other items for the new line, and those purchases, combined with right-of-way clearing and other costs, total an additional almost $1.9 million.

The power line would originate at the Diamond Lake substation and run to the south, then turn west toward the lot on state Route 211 just north of U.S. 2 where the district plans to build the Bare Mountain substation, says Chris Jones, superintendent of the power line project. Jones, the district's line superintendent and acting operations manager, says the district hopes to have the substation in service by 2016.

Potelco is expected to start work on the power line project Aug. 2, and the district hopes it will be completed by Oct. 31, Jones says. He says the line will be 10 miles long and will be strung on 153 steel poles.

"Our steel poles are coming in," he says. "We bought the wire, the insulators, and the hardware for the poles. It gives the utility a little bit more control on cost."

In addition to supporting the 115-kv transmission line, which is the size the district uses throughout its system to carry electricity from substation to substation, part of the new power line will carry distribution lines, which carry electricity to customers, Jones says.

The district is building the line to serve the south part of the county, which is growing, says contracts administrator Eileen Dugger.

"We simply don't have enough electricity down there," she says. "We needed more transmission to deliver enough electricity to the south part of the county."

Jones says, "It's a capacity issue." He says that building a new substation closer to those customers will enable the PUD to serve them better because less power will be lost during distribution.

When a utility builds a substation nearer to its customers, "it's like putting a generator closer to the house," he says.

A planning document on the district's Web site says that Pend Oreille County's population grew by 10.4 percent between 2000 and 2006, and south Pend Oreille County saw load growth of 4.1 percent at the Diamond Lake substation, resulting in a strain on distribution capacity and voltage restraints to that part of the county.

While growth has slowed somewhat in the south end of the county, "it didn't slow enough so we thought it would end," Jones says. He adds, "The north-south freeway in Spokane will open up a lot of things in the south part of the county."

Dugger says the district's board awarded the bid in a special meeting it held July 16 to move the project along.

"We're planning to get this done before winter," she says.