Basin Electric’s Transmission Systems Maintenance (TSM) team had a busy 2024, a year marked by several projects and many successes, according to TSM Manager Derik Johnson.
Topping the list of successes was keeping employees safe, a top priority for the cooperative. Johnson said no safety violation reports – sometimes referred to as DART for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred – from his team were filed in 2024.
“That was a pretty big milestone for TSM,” he said. A graph he uses to track safety statistics goes back to 2012. From that date, there’s only been two no-DART years – 2021 and 2024.
One challenge TSM faced in 2024 was energizing five transmission projects in a week’s time: Roundup-to-Kummer Ridge 345-kilovolt (kV) line; three sections of new equipment at the new Leland Olds Station 345-kV substation; and a generator step-up transformer at Pioneer Generation Station Phase IV.
Another big undertaking for the team was taking charge of the Stegall DC tie, a high-voltage direct current facility located near Stegall, Nebraska. The tie allows for the transfer of electrical power between the eastern and western U.S. electrical grids. Basin Electric assumed responsibility for maintaining the tie in March 2024.
The team also moved into a new shop location in Gillette, Wyoming. Efforts were made over the years to salvage the old building, but continual shifting of the foundation drove the decision to move to a new site. Finishing repairs to the Wheelock 230-/115-kV transformer near Ray, North Dakota; replacing a transformer in Sidney, Nebraska; and dealing with the aftermath of a wildfire in northeast Wyoming that burned transmission structures were a few of the other projects, among many others, the TSM team worked on in 2024.
“We had a fabulous year, and I’m proud of the team and what they have accomplished,” Johnson said. “They hit some good goals and completed a lot of interesting projects. We onboarded a lot of new employees and got our maintenance done, too.”
Johnson said he hopes 2025 will be just as successful – and uneventful when it comes to the safety issue. “It’s tough to beat zero,” he said of the no-DART year. “But hopefully we can tie it. We’re hoping for the same success in 2025 that occurred in 2024.”
