< PreviousTHE HUMAN SMART GRIDElectricity signaled progress a century ago. Broadband sparks it today.Fiber to the premises could be the key to making the premise of rural prosperity a reality.In August, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue — a former governor and native son of Georgia who was raised by a farmer and a teacher in the rural town of Perry — announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its Electric Infrastructure Loan Program, would invest $. million in infrastructure projects across states. e projects include nearly $ million for smart grid technology along those new miles of power line. ose improvements mean a lot to rural territories and electric cooperatives that serve them in parts of southern Illinois, Florida, Colorado, California and Minnesota, among other states. But a separate $-million investment the USDA announced fi ve days previously could mean just as much in today’s tech- and entrepreneur-driven economy. e investment supports projects to install or upgrade broadband communications in rural areas by ADAM BRUNSadam.bruns@site selection.com98 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NTHE RURAL ADVANT AGEfrom far western Maryland to Native American reservations in the Southwest, establishing the sort of crucial connectivity that in a global internet economy can mean reaching critical mass in terms of business viability.“A person’s location should not determine whether he or she has access to modern communications infrastructure,” Secretary Perdue said. “These investments will expand access to educational, social and business opportunities for 22,000 subscribers to help grow their rural communities and America’s economy.”“In today’s digital age, access to the internet is a necessity for growth in almost any industry,” Rob Dixon, now director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, said in January when the state announced its own new initiative to expand broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas. “This will help ensure that all of Missouri will have the infrastructure needed to support job creation.” A northeast Missouri telecommunications firm received a $13.7-million to convert six exchanges from copper to fiber and install nearly 500 route miles of fiber in and around Green City, population 657, located in a spot almost equally remote from Kansas City, Des Moines and St. Louis.Many states are pursuing programs to connect the countryside to internet-fueled opportunity, based on the rationale that it’s just the newest infrastructure requirement for companies and residents alike.“Business Oregon’s infrastructure financing programs are critical to updating water, wastewater, industrial land, and multimodal transportation infrastructure statewide, but particularly in rural communities to advance economic development and community health priorities,” said Business Oregon Director Chris Harder in announcing in January the agency’s acceptance of proposals from communities for up to $500,000 in funding that can be used for planning, engineering, infrastructure, or as matching funds for rural broadband development. S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 101“But to ensure long-term growth thought the state, we must also address 21st century infrastructure needs, and broadband access is critical to rural economic opportunity.”Global Main StreetUSDA is making its investments through the Telecommunications Infrastructure Loan Program and the Community Connect Grant Program. The actions come on the heels of the U.S. Congress allotting $600 million for a broadband pilot program. Assistant to the USDA Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett described why the push is so urgent and necessary in an August 2018 post on the USDA website after visiting a south-central Kansas community where everyone is still on dial-up:“During a gathering at the county courthouse, I listened to many challenges that community leaders face: the need for new business investment, lack of advanced educational opportunity for students, and safety risk for first responders who have to rely on outdated technology,” she wrote. “After talking with the sheriff and local officials, I realized that expanding access to broadband would remedy virtually 90 percent of the concerns we discussed. For example, with modern high-speed internet service, small business owners on Main Street could open the door to new a world of new customers through e-commerce. With that impact, my visit was a powerful reminder that much more is at stake in this e-connectivity gap than inconvenience.”In July the USDA opened a public comment period for that new pilot program.“Secretary Perdue recently described broadband e-connectivity as a ‘game changer’ for our entire nation,” Hazlett wrote. “With that importance, we are committed to partnering with local leaders to ensure that every rural community has an on-ramp to the ‘digital superhighway.’ Working together, we can build strong, healthy and prosperous communities now and for generations to come.” 102 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NAll ingsTOMost PeopleAll ingsTOMost PeopleThe team members who work for the 2018 Top Utilities in Economic Development wear a lot of hats, and that’s just fi ne.T OP UTILITIES 2018Utilities invented the fi eld of economic development. It was a simple pitch, really: Turn up, plug in and turn on. We’ll help keep your business fl owing as long as you keep our electrons fl owing.Dependable and aff ordable power still lies at the root of many site selections. e end user might be assembling cryptocurrency instead of Chryslers, but good old power provision can still sway good old high-dollar manufacturing decisions.“Entergy Louisiana’s low-cost, reliable power allows our Iberville Parish facilities to compete eff ectively in the global marketplace,” said Yasuhiko Saitoh, president of Shintech Inc., in August on the signing of a new long-term agreement with the utility. It came just after the company announced it would invest in a $.-billion, -job expansion to develop a new chlor alkali and vinyl chloride monomer production facility and expand its existing polyvinyl chloride plant near Plaquemine, where the project will create up to , construction jobs. But things today are diff erent. Industries also are seeking sustainability, often via self-generated renewable energy on site or purchased through their utility. And with the onset of smart grids, microgrids, electric vehicle mobility networks and the internet of things, industrial and offi ce occupiers alike are looking for the best ways to move information packets as well as those crucial electrons. at means moving Assembling a powerful economic development deal means putting all the right pieces in all the right places.Photo courtesy of Duke Energyby ADAM BRUNSadam.br uns @ site s ele c tion.c om104 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO Nbroadband capacity into underserved areas — and that task often falls to the private-sector utility or electric cooperative. PowerSouth President and CEO Gary Smith put it this way in an August column, “Communities without strong information infrastructure are rarely viable candidates for economic growth. Businesses will only locate where they can communicate.”As The Wall Street Journal pointed out in August, high-tech companies are landing in places like Huntsville, Alabama, and Clarksville, Tennessee — both in Top Utility TVA’s territory — in part because of access to clean and affordable energy, and because of partnerships with TVA’s economic development and local power companies. “Reliable power is an especially critical asset for technology giant Google as it delivers data to users around the world without fail,” TVA noted in August, highlighting its deal of a couple years ago to provide renewable and steady power to a new Google data center that, as it happened, landed at a closed coal-fired power plant in Alabama.Lest we forget, utilities’ own operations do their part too, with the power company contributing to overall community welfare in a multitude of ways from job creation to taxes. In AEP’s case, a new data center it will service happens to be in-house: Investing more than $125 million and creating 17 new jobs in the Columbus region in Ohio, AEP will construct a 22,000-sq.-ft., Tier III backup data center in Groveport that will connect to AEP’s primary data center in New Albany.Every utility on our list has pitched in to what seem like increasingly frequent hurricane recovery missions. They also are pursuing grid modernization in all its forms. At its most concrete, it involves literally moving power lines, as Entergy Mississippi is doing with a $1.5 million project in Franklin County that’s replacing 125 wooden poles with about 160 new ones; using steel poles for highway crossings; and replacing 147 spans of copper wire with 189 spans of stronger aluminum wire, along 10 miles of line.This year’s elite group of Top Utilities in Economic Development (presented here in alphabetical order) was determined by examining corporate end-user facility investment project activity in 2017 within the utilities’ service territories, and calculating those projects’ jobs and capital investment numbers on a cumulative and per-capita basis.TVA’s Norris DamPhoto courtesy of TVA106 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NAmerican Electric PowerColumbus, Ohiowww.aeped.comAMONG THE HIGHLIGHTS of the 7,331 new jobs and more than $12 billion in corporate project investment in AEP territory last year were the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (ExxonMobil/SABIC JV) ethylene cracker plant in Portland, Texas (600 jobs and $7 billion in capex); Facebook’s data center in New Albany, Ohio (150 jobs, $2 billion); and Braidy Industries’ aluminum rolling mill in Ashland, Kentucky (550 jobs, $1.3 billion).Appalachian Sky, is a new initiative that began in AEP’s Kentucky territory and grew to encompass AEP territories in the Tri-State region (eastern Kentucky, southwestern Ohio, and western West Virginia) to attract the aerospace and aviation industries to AEP’s central Appalachia service region, after regional workforce analysis in AEP’s Kentucky territory showed coal miners have transferable skills to the aerospace and advanced manufacturing industries. A consultant has been commissioned to certify 19 counties in the region as AeroReady. AEP added 16 new sites to its AEP Quality Sites certification program in 2017, bringing the total to 45 sites in the portfolio, five of which have successfully attracted job-creating investment from companies.AEP, whose territory encompasses 12 million people in 11 states, plans to invest $24 billion through 2021 to rebuild and enhance aging infrastructure, add advanced technologies to the energy system and create a more reliable and resilient grid.ComEd - An Exelon CompanyOakbrook Terrace, Illinoiswww.comed.com/econdevSERVING 3.9 MILLION customers in over 400 municipalities and all or a portion of 25 counties in the northern third of the State of Illinois, ComEd recently found it directly contributes $1.56 billion in supply chain expenditures and generated an additional $1.34 billion in goods and services, supporting 16,000 jobs (with $1.11 billion in wages), as determined by the REAL Institute.In addition to working with customers, ComEd works to enhance the business 2018 TOP UTILITIES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT HONORABLE MENTIONS(in alphabetical order)Alabama PowerBirmingham, Alabamawww.amazingalabama.comCenterPoint EnergyHouston, Texaswww.centerpointenergy.com/ecodevConsumers Energy CompanyJackson, Michiganwww.consumersenergy.com/company/economic-developmentDominion EnergyRichmond, Virginiawww.dominionenergy.comFirstEnergy Corp.Akron, Ohiofirstenergycorp.com/edFlorida Power & Light CompanyJuno Beach, Floridawww.PoweringFlorida.comHoosier EnergyBloomington, Indianawww.hoosiersites.comKansas City Power & LightKansas City, Missouriwww.kcpled.comPortland General ElectricPortland, Oregonwww.portlandgeneral.com/business/grow-my-business/business-developmentPowerSouthAndalusia, Alabamawww.powersouth.com/economic-development/T OP UTILITIES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTNext >