Paiutes Partner With OPD To Connect Plaza To Grid

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

Significant infrastructure improvements may be coming soon for the Paiute Travel Plaza facility located near Exit 75 of Interstate 15 on the Moapa Indian Reservation. Last month, the Moapa Band of Paiutes Tribal Council entered negotiations with Overton Power District (OPD) officials to build a transmission line connecting the Plaza to the Tortoise Substation, OPD’s main supply hub located in Moapa.

The proposed project would connect the Plaza to the electrical grid for the first time and open the possibility of significant expansion on the remote reservation lands in the future.
District engineer Randall Ozaki reported the development to the OPD Board of Directors during a meeting held Wednesday, April 18 in Mesquite.

Ozaki explained that the district had been proposing the project to the Tribal Council in various forms for the past ten years. But the council had never moved to approve it before last month.

About three weeks ago, however, when Ozaki had brought it again before council members, they voted to approve the transmission line and move forward. The tribe began the process by advancing $200,000 to the district to start the engineering process, Ozaki said.

The proposed transmission line is planned to span about 12-15 miles roughly following the alignment of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. It would take a jog to the south to bring the line near the I-15 Ute exit and provide a tap point for a possible future project in that area, Ozaki explained.

The line would need to secure rights of way and permits to pass through federal BLM land, cross a major existing transmission corridor, run alongside the railroad tracks, and cross the Interstate.

An end-point substation is also proposed to be constructed just south of the Paiute Travel Plaza facility.
Ozaki said that the actual construction of the line is estimated to take 14-18 months to finish. But securing the necessary permits and rights of way from the various entities involved could take significantly longer than that, he said.

The 69 kilovolt line would carry roughly 20-40 megawatts in capacity, according to OPD General Manager Mendis Cooper. This would have the potential to provide significantly more capacity than is currently needed at the Plaza.
“Just to give an idea, all of the Moapa Valley including Overton, Logandale, Moapa, Warm Springs and Lake Mead, all together, use about 30 megawatts,” Cooper said in an interview last week with the Progress. “So it would allow for some signficant growth in the future if the tribe should want to do it.”
The cost of the line is estimated at $4.4 million. All of that would be paid by the tribe as it is expected to be the sole customer on the line.

During its many years of operations, the Paiute Plaza has received its power by running large diesel generators on site. In past years the tribe received a grant to install solar panels on the property that, for a time, supplied at least part of the facility’s power needs. But more recently many of those panels had reached the end of their life cycle and fallen into disrepair.

In early agreements, the tribe had made arrangements with First Solar, the company that build the 250 megawatt solar generating plant located on 2,000 acres of tribal land across the I-15 from the Plaza, to supply the Plaza with a portion of the solar power generated there.

But that arrangement reportedly fell through when Los Angeles Department of Water and Power entered a power purchase agreement with First Solar.
“We are very happy to be working together with the tribe on this project,” said Cooper. “I think it will be a huge benefit to the tribe and has the potential to bring significant economic development to the area.”

No one from the Moapa Band of Paiutes responded to requests from the Progress for comments last week.