Two NRE employees in a lift working at a substation.
Cloverdale, VA

Project Spotlight: Cloverdale Substation

New River Electrical works on projects in all sorts of locales near and far. But we’ve also been working on a project in our own backyard (literally!) at the Cloverdale Substation for the past few years.

Raising the Standard

From 2014 to spring 2017, we worked on a $40 million project at three sites in Cloverdale located less than a mile from one another just behind our corporate office.

At the time, this was the largest project NRE had ever taken on. We constructed a new substation at the Cloverdale 500kV Station, completed a massive expansion at the Cloverdale 765kV Station, and completed a smaller expansion of the Cloverdale 345/138kV Station. Approximately 120 men worked on the three stations over the course of project.

With all of the stations considered extra-high voltage, it required the specialized expertise of an NRE crew. A substation renovation presents unique safety concerns: with men working very high in the air, it’s important to work in non-windy conditions and make sure the workers have solid footing. Beneath the worksite, there are often open excavations, so we put up barricades to keep workers safe from dangerous areas. As always, we made sure to take all of the precautions necessary to ensure the safety of our workers.

Back at it Again

With that project wrapped up, we started a $15 million project working in the Cloverdale 765kV yard in 2019. Over the next several months, we will be replacing an aging 765/345kV transformer bank with a crew of about 35 technicians and craftsmen. With that comes some new steel towers that are approximately 175 feet in height, new 765kV circuit breakers and switches, electrical bus, and thousands of feet of underground cable (medium and low voltage).

We’re proud of the work we do along the East Coast and across the country, but it feels special to set the standard for industry expertise, safety, and professionalism in our own backyard.