Garden City moves forward with city’s electric distribution system improvements

The Garden City Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved an ordinance authorizing improvements to the city’s electric distribution system and the general obligation bonds intended to fund them, the most recent step in an ongoing project with Sunflower Power Corp. and Wheatland Electric Cooperative.

The city’s electric department has for months prepared for improvements to some of its substations and expansion of its distribution system.

Currently, Sunflower’s system distributes Garden City’s electric power supply to substations owned by Wheatland, which charged the city $535,000 last year to transfer the power to city distribution facilities, said Mike Muirhead, the city’s public utilities director. Restrictions at the Wheatland substations also limit the capacity of power the city can receive.

For years, the city has wanted to connect to Sunflower directly, Muirhead said, a change that would avoid those restrictions and cut out the annual charges to Wheatland.