Mississippi Power completes rebuild of Bayou Casotte substation

Gulfport, Miss. - Mississippi Power recently completed a rebuild of its Bayou Casotte substation that serves customers in Pascagoula. 

“This project provides a more resilient and reliable grid to serve our customers in the Pascagoula area,” said Fran Forehand, vice president of Power Delivery and Division Operations. “I’m proud of the teamwork and collaboration it took to finish this complex work safely.”

The original Bayou Casotte substation was built in 1958 and was extremely deteriorated due to age and harsh environment.

“Several years of planning went into upgrading this station, so it could be done without interrupting service to our customers,” said Jay Halford, Transmission construction manager. “We developed a great plan and we were able to successfully execute that plan.”

The old site was demolished, rebuilt to updated standards and elevated approximately five feet as part of the company’s continued storm-hardening efforts.

During the construction, the load was served from the Moss Point Elder Ferry substation which required several Distribution improvement projects, including converting the existing 4kV feeder to 23kV.  

Transmission lines temporarily bypassed the Bayou Casotte substation to keep the Transmission system intact. 

“There was excellent work and thorough planning by everyone involved in finding solutions to reliably serve our customers throughout the 12-plus months of construction,” said Matt Forman, Transmission project manager.

To prepare for future growth, the rebuilt substation has been designed with space to add a second transformer for potential load increase.

“I would estimate approximately 120 people across Southern Company and Mississippi Power had a hand in this project from an estimating, design, operations and construction standpoint,” said Brandon Gill, substation construction supervisor. 

Now in its 100th year of service, Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), produces safe, reliable and affordable energy for more than 192,000 customers in 23 southeast Mississippi counties. Mississippi Power is proud to be an industry leader in safety and reliability. The company was recognized in 2024 by the Southeastern Electric Exchange for the Top Safety Performance in its generation category. For outstanding storm response, the company has also been honored by the Edison Electric Institute multiple times with an Emergency Response Award. Visit our website at mississippipower.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

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