F. E. Phelps Control Center

The F.E. Phelps Control Center houses the Grand Island Utilities Department power and water dispatch center as well as other technical personnel. It is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays. The center is named after past Utilities Director Frank E. Phelps.

The Phelps Control Center has three main functions. First, Power Dispatchers monitor and manage the power grid for the City of Grand Island. Historically this was accomplished by forecasting power needs each day and then dispatching on local, City owned, generation to match the load. In the modern electrical grid, all Utilities belong to a regional power market. Local generation is offered into the market and load is purchased out of the market. The benefit is that load is served by the lowest cost generation available. Secondly, personnel manage trouble calls, including power outages and other electrical and water issues, throughout the system. Trouble calls are generated by customer phone calls or automatically detected through AMI ‘Smart’ meters and other monitoring equipment. Thirdly, Phelps Control Center oversees operating and maintaining the City owned substations and high voltage transmission system, as well as operating the electrical distribution system, which includes the overhead and underground lines throughout the streets and alleyways of Grand Island.