NUECES COUNTY, Texas — Work is underway on an $8 million project to provide back up electric power to the Nueces County Courthouse along with the main jail and the McKenzie Jail Annex. Huge temporary power generators were put into place to use in case a storm hits our area in the next few days.
Behind the Nueces County Jail is where workers were busy installing everything that's going to be needed to run two huge temporary backup power generators.
It's part of the County's plan to be prepared to keep the jail, the courthouse and the McKenzie Street Annex Jail all up and running in case the power is knocked out. It's a project that is going to end up costing upwards of $8 million.
"There's a big expense to this, unfortunately, there's a bigger expense that if you had to move any of the inmates or jail people out of this jail," Shane Peterson, Senior Project Manager said.
These temporary generators should be operating by the first of next week. Then, later in the fall, the permanent back up power generators will arrive and be installed.
"Going forward in phase two project, in the future project, the permanent generators will be interconnected with the utility and they will be on continuously continuously and I'll never see a blip through the system," John Rodriguez, Project Engineer said.
County Judge Barbara Canales said that this project has been in the works for at least a year.
We also understand that very few County and City governments along the coast have any backup generators like these. Judge Canales believes that once those permanent backup generators are in place, they will help to pay for themselves.
"Most exciting is when they're not being used, we can provide dividends to the County by selling electricity in peak hours back to the grid so we're helping Texas," Canales said. "We're creating redundancy and of course providing resiliency."
The cost to put in the two big temporary backup generators is right around $1 million.