By: Lindsay Phillips
Edgerton was recently recognized for their actions during the power outage that occurred in June.
After a high-voltage transmission line fell across railroad tracks in Williams County, a train came into contact with them, dragging down fifteen poles before it came to a stop, leaving the entire Village of Edgerton without power.
Although these events were outside of the village’s control, village officials handled the situation and started up the Ohio Municipal Electric Generation Agency Joint Venture two diesel generators which quickly brought power back to the residents.
In total, the Edgerton Electric Department was able to maintain electric service in the village for more than 24 hours using the OMEGA JV2 generating units located within the community.
This gave residents the ability to use electricity while FirstEnergy completed the work to restore the community’s power feed.
Edgerton is a member of American Municipal Power, Inc, that owns and operates its own public power system. AMP is a non-profit wholesale power supplier that has 133 members in various states.
The village chose to join AMP along with 35 other communities which resulted in the creation of the OMEGA JV2 which provides numerous benefits to the communities including that in emergency situations.
American Municipal Power magazine, Amplifier, stated “The situation that occurred in Edgerton was a triumph of public power, but the village is far from the only AMP member community serving as a positive case study for the public power model.”