The City of Neodesha Puts New Generation Facility to the Test

Starting Monday, October 6, the City of Neodesha put its newly installed generation facility through a real-world test. From Monday morning until late Thursday afternoon, the city carried the entire community’s electrical demand using its own generation resources.
The brand-new plant, commissioned and dedicated on August 13 of this year, consists of four CAT C175 generators, each rated at 3 megawatts. This marks a significant investment in local energy resilience.
The test was prompted by Evergy, which requested the city operate the plant while upgrades were made to the 69 kV transmission line connecting Neodesha to the Evergy system.
City staff, with support from KMEA Midstates and Foley Power Solutions, manned the plant around the clock to ensure optimal performance and uninterrupted power for residents throughout the event.

“The City of Neodesha is very pleased with the successful stint of power generation from our new City of Neodesha Generation Facility. This accomplishment represents a major step forward in our ongoing commitment to reliability and energy resilience for our community. We extend our sincere appreciation to KMEA and Foley for their outstanding support and partnership throughout this generation period. Their expertise and collaboration were instrumental in making this effort a success,” said City Administrator Brogan Jones.

During the outage, the city generated 452 MWh of energy, with a peak output of 7.7 MW and an average of 3.1 MW. Crews managed the city’s energy needs by operating between two and four generators throughout the four-day run. In total, the plant consumed 33,794 gallons of diesel during the event.