Viking Substation now on ECE’s grid

Viking Substation now on ECE’s grid Main Photo

3 Jul 2025


News

East Central Energy marked a key milestone by successfully interconnecting the Viking Substation, formerly owned by North Branch Water & Light, into its distribution system. ECE purchased the electric infrastructure in 2023.

A planned outage occurred in North Branch at 4 a.m. on June 24, which lasted a total of ten minutes due to the need to manually open a switch during the transition.

“This was a carefully coordinated effort between the co-op, our power supplier Great River Energy, and Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency,” said Jerod Stamper, Operations Manager at ECE. “The end result is a stronger, more reliable system for North Branch members.”

Click here to view the original article from Isanti-Chisago County Star.