Happy New Year. I hope you and your family had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you the very best in 2023. At the board of directors meeting last month, the directors approved our 2023 work plan and budget. I would like to highlight a few of the key projects.
Construction: We faced many supply-chain issues in 2022 and 2023 is not looking much better. In the past, we could order most inventory a month or so in advance and receive it. Now we are lucky if we can get a lot of items within a year of ordering. Along with long delays in shipping, costs have increased by at least 28% as well.
In 2023, major construction will take place in Mauston, Lyndon, Wyeville, Shennington, Kendall, Elroy, Castle Rock, and Bear Bluff areas. There are also many other places where smaller construction projects will take place in Clifton, Buckhorn, Babcock, Ocean Spray, and Whistling Wings. Depending on cost, inventory status, and terrain, some of these areas will be converted from overhead to underground. In 2023, we also plan to start construction on two new substations.
Renewables: Oakdale Electric Cooperative (OEC) continues to support renewables with our community solar garden and helping members connect their own member solar projects to our grid. We are also planning on building two of our own solar gardens in the summer of 2023. We had hoped to have this completed in 2022; however, due to supply-chain issues, we had to delay. One will be approximately 3.5 MW and the other will be approximately 1.5 MW. As construction gets closer, we will be sharing more details about the project(s).
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