Historic District Electric Maintenance Program

Program Background

Each year, Hudson Public Power (HPP) reviews the electrical wires, poles and equipment and determines areas in the City that are most in need of rebuilding to ensure safe, reliable electric service. As part of this program, HPP planned to replace badly aging wires, poles, equipment and vaults in the Historic District. The maintenance improvements include re-conductoring the electric system, including new wires, poles, and equipment. It also includes replacement of aging, outdated electric junctions in manholes.

Electric Junctions

Electric junctions are splice points in an electric system that allow power to be distributed and isolated in many directions. Some of these junctions are located in manholes that are too small for individuals to enter based on today's OSHA standards and often filled with water, making them unsafe. When the City rebuilds an area and replaces the electric equipment, it also replaces these unsafe manhole electrical junctions, usually with above-ground electric cabinets.

Historic District Manhole Vaults

The Historic District has a number of manhole vaults in the streets that must be replaced as part of the electric system maintenance. After listening to concerns of residents regarding the use of our standard above-ground vault in the Historic District, the City began investigating other options that would meet everyone's safety and reliability needs, while lessening the visual impact on the character of the Historic District. At a Town Hall Special Council Workshop, the City presented a viable solution, offering a smaller vault that could be placed in the tree lawn area that would provide safety, reliability and quicker restoration of power during an outage. As it is flush mounted in ground, the vault would not significantly impact the streetscape. View the Quazite Utility Enclosure Specifications.