Cookeville In Final Stages On Cane Creek Facility

The Cookeville Energy Department nearing the final stages of the Cane Creek substation project.

Cookeville Energy Department Director Carl Haney said the new facility will feed three of the five power distribution stations the city of Cookeville owns. Haney said the department has the equipment and transformer in place and are currently testing the substation.

“Once the testing is complete on that to make sure that everything is hooked up right and operating correctly, those safety mechanisms are there,” Haney said. “Once we make sure of that then we’ll be bringing it online and then we’ll be removing old transformers and the old equipment out there.”

Haney said the project has been a two-year process as the department experienced several delays in receiving equipment. Haney said he expects the substation to be online sometime in January.

“This testing will take place obviously with the Christmas holiday coming up there will be people not working during that time so our plan is to have all the testing completed sometime around the first or second week of January,” Haney said. “Once that is done we can bring it online.”

Haney said fortunately enough working on the substation has not affected the power within Cookeville.

“We were able to build this new equipment and transformer in the substation while keeping the old ones online or at least energized so that if anything was to happen we would still have that backup,” Haney said. “So it really has not impacted what our customers or anyone would see.”

Haney said as of now the South Cookeville substation has taken over for distributing power until the Cane Creek substation comes online. Haney said that once completed, Cookeville will have a backup source for providing safe energy to residents.