AEP Transmission Awarded Back-to-Back Edison Awards

From left to right: Bob Powers, vice chairman AEP; Nick Akins, AEP chairman, president and CEO; Meihuan Fulk, principal engineer, AEP Transmission; Richard Gutman, staff engineer, AEP Transmission; Tom Kuhn, president, EEI; and Lisa Barton, EVP, AEP Transmission.

(Story by George Promenschenkel)

For the second year in a row, AEP Transmission has won the prestigious Edison Award presented by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). The award, which is given out annually, honors “distinguished leadership, innovation and contribution to the advancement of the electric industry for the benefit of all.”

This year, AEP Transmission won for its Robison Park-Sorenson rebuild project using Breakthrough Overhead Line Design (BOLD™) technology in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. When energized in November 2016, Robison Park-Sorenson became the world’s first operating BOLD transmission line. The project replaced a 1940s era 138-kV line with a double-circuit 138/345-kV BOLD line, providing five times the megawatts of the earlier line to flow in the same corridor. The line has helped ease grid congestion and other issues in the Ft. Wayne area.

“Our industry is making important investments in innovative new technologies that are helping to improve reliability, energy grid resiliency, and services for customers,” said EEI President Tom Kuhn. “AEP’s BOLD project is another great example of the industry implementing innovative solutions.”

“BOLD is the result of imaginative thinking and long hours to put those ideas to work solving real-life transmission challenges,” said Lisa Barton, executive vice president-AEP Transmission. “It is an honor to lead a team capable of both creating such an elegant and efficient solution.”

AEP has won the Edison award in three of the last five years, and with this award, has now received the Edison Award more than any utility company since the inception of the award. In addition to this year’s award, AEP Transmission also won last year for its Lower Rio Grande Valley project. AEP won the 2013 Edison Award for the construction of its Turk Plant, the country’s first ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant.

The 2017 edition of the award was EEI’s 89th annual. Southern California Energy also won the Edison Award this year for construction of hybrid battery and natural gas turbine power plants.