Xcel Energy shows off newly remodeled Plainview Service Center

PLAINVIEW — Xcel Energy is celebrating the completion of a recent renovation to its Plainview Service Center  — a project several years and $6 million in the making that the company says will create a safer and more efficient facility to better serve its Plainview-area customers.

Xcel team members, Plainview Chamber of Commerce ambassadors and civic leaders gathered for a quick look around, a ribbon cutting and barbeque lunch Thursday morning at the 23,600 square-foot facility, located at 2301 Quincy St. Chris LeFevre, Xcel Energy manager for Community and Economic Development in Plainview, shared with the group about the remodel and several other recently completed projects around town aimed at improving Xcel's service and reliability.

LeFevre said the facility was built in 1963 and had not seen any significant upgrades in its nearly 60 years. He said the project involved almost a complete gutting of the building to abate hazardous materials and retrofit pretty much everything.

"They came in here and redid all the electrical, all the plumbing. They took out all the floors," LeFevre said. "They had to put a fire suppression system in, which we never had before."

The remodel also includes new employee workstations, LED lighting upgrades and a new HVAC system.

"With all the things they have upgraded, they expect to see a 50 percent savings in power consumption," LeFevre said.

The service center, which is home to around 30 employees including line crews, meter readers, engineers and operations technicians, will also house a new distribution control center that would serve as a backup in case the main control facility in Lubbock is offline.

Other improvements Xcel has recently made in the Plainview district — which serves an area including Plainview north to Kress and Tulia, northeast to Silverton, east to Floydada, southeast to Petersburg, south to Abernathy, southwest to Littlefield and Sudan, west to Earth and northwest to Hart — include the $700 million Hale Wind Project near Petersburg, new transmission lines and substations, major substation upgrades and a complete rebuild of transmission lines on 24th Street in Plainview as part of a bond project to improve that road, LeFevre said.

"Now, the network we have in Plainview is better than it's ever been," LeFevre said.