CANYON, Texas (Feb. 12, 2019) – Xcel Energy is now occupying a new and much larger service center in Canyon to help the company better serve the high level of growth in its Canyon operations district.
“We’ve experienced a high rate of growth as our commercial and industrial customer base expands and new home development booms,” said Mike Grant, manager for Community and Economic Development in the Canyon and Hereford area. “We can better serve our Canyon-area customers from a larger and more accessible location.”
The new service center, located on close to 10 acres at 201 Interstate 27 in east Canyon, is comprised of a 7,700 square-foot office building and a 14,000 square-foot warehouse for a total floorplan of almost 22,000 square feet. The siting of the new service center just east of the intersection of Texas Highway 217 (Fourth Avenue) and the north frontage road of Interstate 27 allows better access to area substations and offers free movement of service trucks without disrupting city streets.
In addition to providing a comfortable work setting, the new Canyon Service Center is a model for energy-efficient construction. It is equipped with LED lighting inside and out, a highly efficient heating and cooling system, water-saving flush valves and highly efficient plumbing fixtures. Trees and shrubs outside are irrigated through a water-saving soaking system, and the native grass lawn is watered through water-saving sprinkler heads. Total investment in the new service center is around $6.5 million.
At the present time, 20 employees are based in the new service center working in the areas of operations, metering, engineering, storeroom, substation operations and maintenance, fleet, community relations and facilities services. Xcel Energy recently added a new three-man line crew to keep up with Canyon’s growth, and several of the company’s Hereford-based employees spend considerable hours in Canyon working on the design and construction of new service connections. The facility is large enough to accommodate additional employees as future growth demands.
Xcel Energy’s Canyon district takes in a large area bounded by Farm-to Market Road 2219 (Rockwell Road) on the north, Palo Duro Canyon on the east, the city of Happy on the south and the Umbarger community on the west.
Electricity first came to Canyon in 1908 when the city of Canyon granted a franchise to the Canyon Power Company. Texas Utilities Company (later known as Texas-New Mexico Utilities Company) purchased the Canyon system in 1924. Southwestern Public Service Company, which had its origins in Roswell, N.M., in 1904, purchased the Canyon system from Texas-New Mexico Utilities in 1942. Southwestern Public Service has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Xcel Energy since 2000.
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About Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) provides the energy that powers millions of homes and businesses across eight Western and Midwestern states. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company is an industry leader in responsibly reducing carbon emissions and producing and delivering clean energy solutions from a variety of renewable sources at competitive prices. For more information, visit xcelenergy.com or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
