Fortune 500 Power Company
69kV Substation Relocation
Salas O’Brien’s cutting-edge design and implementation in this substation relocation project reduced construction time, lowered costs, and met the client’s fast-tracked schedule while allowing for continuous service during construction.
Our client
This Fortune 500 Power Company provides power generation, transmission, and distribution for more than five million customers across the nation. Their aim is to support businesses, commerce, and communities through reliable service and solutions.
Project highlights

Their challenge
One of this client’s existing substations was exceeding capacity and experiencing a 10% increase in load growth per year. In the surrounding area serviced by the station, further scheduled developments included a new football stadium, medical facilities, public parks, a high school, and athletic practice facilities—all of which would further draw on the existing station. This growth necessitated the relocation and expansion of the existing substation, and Salas O’Brien was engaged by the client to help determine the best location; provide electrical, civil, and structural engineering; and facilitate a construction process that would allow for continuous service during construction.
Our solution
Salas O’Brien’s design met the client’s growth needs and the fast-tracked schedule while providing excellent quality and a high level of attention to detail. Our substation design utilized a prefabricated bus that was designed by Salas O’Brien engineers, built in a factory, and shipped to the site assembled—a cutting-edge approach that is new in the industry. Salas O’Brien was one of the first firms to implement this approach. Throughout the duration of the project, our team provided construction support to facilitate the pilot-installation of the prefabricated bus structure. The control house was also built and wired offsite, delivered to the site as one complete control system, and then connected to the yard equipment in the field.
The results
In addition to providing designs and layout, Salas O’Brien developed full documentation of all the substation equipment for compliance under NERC FAC-008 & PRC-005. Our approach on this project reduced the standard field construction time, which resulted in dramatic cost savings.


