The Indiana Municipal Power Agency (IMPA), a not-for-profit joint action agency and political subdivision of the State of Indiana, provides 100% of the wholesale power supply needed in its 61 member communities. Additionally, IMPA endeavors to serve its members beyond power supply with a variety of high-quality services. One of the most significant supplementary services that the Agency provides is its operations and engineering expertise through its subsidiary, IMPA Service Corp.
IMPA Service Corp was formed in 2001 at the request of several member communities who wanted the Agency’s help in finding qualified engineers to design projects for their electric system on a pay-per-use basis. Since its formation, IMPA Service Corp has rapidly expanded from providing management consulting, engineering and project management, and rate-related services to a wide-reaching organization that offers additional services in the areas of system management, distribution utility services, substation maintenance, and more.
Now, IMPA Service Corp employs a team of engineers and lineworkers who each play a vital role in keeping the lights on in the Agency’s member communities.
IMPA Service Corp’s engineers take on a variety of projects to ensure the Agency’s communities thrive—whether they’re refining a utility’s reliability through infrastructure improvement projects or diversifying our power supply by designing new generation units. The team also works on coordination studies, service request estimates for projects, and more. ISC’s engineers show exceptional devotion to their roles through the responsibilities that they fulfill for the sake of members each day.
“Each engineer has their own unique strengths that we play to, and everyone is always willing to chip in and work jointly on projects, even if it’s not technically assigned to them,” said Phil Lopresto, IMPA Service Corp Assistance General Manager. “I’m proud to have our engineering team; they make for a great, hard-working group.”
One of the most recent accomplishments of the engineering team was the execution of IMPA’s Richmond 6 Solar Park Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) pilot project. This BESS was designed completely in-house by IMPA Service Corp’s engineers who endeavored to test the feasibility of battery storage technology. Since its commissioning in December, the BESS has provided a dispatchable power resource at the location of Richmond 6 Solar park and delivered it to the city’s distribution system for IMPA’s members’ power supply portfolio.
On the other side of IMPA Service Corp’s house, the lineworkers assist several member communities with the day-to-day maintenance that is needed to keep electricity reliable. This team aids participating members in the areas of system management, distribution utility services, substation maintenance, and outage restoration. Like lineworkers everywhere, these staff members work long hours, through difficult weather, and with high voltage equipment to bring power to residents and business owners.
“Our lineworkers work day and night to make sure our communities have access to dependable power,” said Mike Adams, IMPA Service Corp General Manager. “We continue to work to improve our members’ systems so that power outages and interruptions become less frequent. But when the inevitable happens, we’re there to restore power too.”
Since 2017, IMPA Service Corp has provided the Dedicated Services program to interested members, providing maintenance and operation services to participating members on a regular, scheduled basis throughout the year. Fifteen IMPA communities now participate in the program, making steady improvements to their local distribution systems with the help of IMPA Service Corp lineworkers.
Other services provided by IMPA Service Corp include the Agency’s Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) initiative, created to give members better access to the latest technology in metering. This cost-shared program allows members to integrate AMI into their local systems at more affordable prices when compared to pursuing the technology independently. Another IMPA Service Corp program driven by requests from members and utilizing economies of scale to benefit members is the organization’s Safety Program. The Safety Program offers monthly training sessions at member locations, bringing knowledgeable and experienced instructors to speak on a variety of safety topics. IMPA Service Corp continues to work with IMPA member communities to understand and respond to their needs.
Over the span of 25 years, IMPA Service Corp has become an integral part of several IMPA communities, in many cases serving as a community’s primary resource for electric system maintenance, operation, and restoration. IMPA is proud to serve its members beyond power supply through the hard work of its team at IMPA Service Corp. To learn more about IMPA Service Corp, visit www.impa.com/isc.