It was standing room only inside the Olson Auditorium at Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital on Monday night, as neighbors blasted ComEd over its plans for a new substation in Lincoln Park.
ComEd first introduced plans to build the substation at a former COVID-19 testing facility, at 1111 W. Diversey Parkway, during a community meeting this spring. At the time, residents voiced concerns about safety and giving up a prime spot that could bring more housing.
On Monday, residents, including the group Diversey Community Coalition, asked ComEd why it hasn’t explored other sites for the roughly one-acre substation. They also accused the utility of playing a “shell game” after learning ComEd considered powering what was then Lincoln Yards with the new substation.
ComEd said it’s proposing the substation because of rising power demand on the North Side. It has three substations that serve Lake View, North Center, Uptown and northern Lincoln Park. But those substations are nearing capacity. The three substations reached 95% of their allowable capacity this year. It’s forecasted that the substations will reach 98% capacity by 2031, with two exceeding their limits.
Without more capacity for power, some North Side neighborhoods could face brownouts and blackouts, according to ComEd. The utility also argued such power outages would harm the economic growth that has been accelerating across the area.
ComEd said it needs to act now so it can design, plan and build the substation. The $250 million project would require new underground transmission lines and take about three years to complete.
“If ComEd doesn’t build a new substation to serve load growth in the Northside Neighborhoods, ComEd’s distribution system will not have the ability to support new or improved housing, local businesses, public works, transportation, reclamation of former industrial sites, or expanded educational institutions in the Northside Neighborhoods,” ComEd wrote in a June 17 filing to the Illinois Commerce Commission.
During its community meeting, ComEd leaders told attendees the utility explored alternatives to building a substation and considered other locations. But under its required least-cost, highest-value model, alternatives such as expanding an existing substation or shifting loads didn’t make sense, Dale Player, ComEd’s vice president of engineering and smart grid, said.
Two plots of land for the potential substation suggested by Ald. Timmy Knudsen’s (43rd) office are located across the Chicago River, Player said. ComEd estimated building at either of those parcels would cost between $160 million to $270 million more than the Diversey location because of the cost to tunnel under the river to build new transmission lines.
And four other proposed sites were found to be too small or too expensive when factoring in additional infrastructure and transmission lines to accommodate for the further distance, according to Player.
“Those costs are exponentially more than building a substation on the current site, and that’s an unnecessary cost that would have to be borne by all of the ComEd customers. And that’s just something that we can’t justify,” Player said. “The plot of land at 1111 W. Diversey is the most technically viable and the most cost-effective base cost option for this substation.”
But dozens of neighbors voiced their disapproval at the Diversey plan.
Marie Poppy, a Lincoln Park resident for more than 35 years, called ComEd’s claim that a substation would be better for the site “ridiculous.”
Poppy helped form the Diversey Community Coalition. She questioned why the parcel — which is designated by the city as an equitable transit-oriented development site — couldn’t house multiple uses.
“I don’t, quite frankly, see why everything can’t be done,” Poppy said. “Maybe a smaller substation goes here and the housing goes here. Maybe that’s the solution.”
Knudsen, who was in attendance, said his office has been approached by developers who wanted to buy the land to build housing but were ultimately unsuccessful.
Community members also questioned how the Foundry Park megadevelopment, on the site of the failed Lincoln Yards project, factors into the growing power needs of the North Side. ComEd had said in a previous ICC filing that Lincoln Yards could “utilize the added capacity at ~62% of the customer build out,” in an alternative plan for the new substation.
But ComEd officials denied that Foundry Yards would be powered by the new Diversey substation. And a June 17 filing with ICC said Foundry Park “will likely be served by the Clybourn substation.” It also said a new substation is needed even without Foundry Park in the picture.
Foundry Park’s developers haven’t submitted a “formal application for power,” according to the ComEd filing, and it isn’t included in load forecasts ComEd used for the North Side substation.
“I like ComEd. I think that you are an important utility,” Valerie Staublin said during Monday’s meeting. “However, you have a high level of disingenuousness on this whole issue, and so that’s why some people are speaking out.”
ComEd spokesperson John Schoen said Tuesday the utility “at no point” planned to serve Foundry Park with its new Lincoln Park substation. The 62% figure neighbors inquired about referred to an alternative power option that ComEd chose not to pursue, he said.
Schoen said ComEd reviewed property at the Foundry Park site and didn’t find a parcel that would fit the needs of Lake View and Lincoln Park.
Jim Maggio, who helped form the Diversey coalition, described ComEd’s change of plans over powering Foundry Park as a “shell game.”
“They’re building the substation to relieve capacity at the Costco [substation] so that a private developer can then use the capacity that they relieve — and they’re going to charge ratepayers for it,” Maggio said. “That is not right. They cannot be trusted.”