Following the Select Board's approval at its June 29 meeting, Eversource began work on a major upgrade to the electrical infrastructure along the 4.9 miles of Town Hill Road. The work will continue another few months.

Eversource is spending up to $1.3 million to replace approximately 209 utility poles and the associated electrical wiring along the Town Hill Road corridor. The scale of the work is substantial. Each new pole weighs approximately 2,500 pounds, meaning that the project will involve moving and installing more than 2.2 million pounds of utility poles.

The most significant change, however, will be in the electrical system itself. The existing system is primarily single-phase 8,320-volt service, which will be upgraded to a three-phase system operating at approximately 22,000 volts. Three-phase distribution provides substantially greater electrical capacity and is commonly used where larger electrical loads are anticipated.

An Eversource representative explained that the new, heavier conductors require additional support and that the upgrades are necessary due to the high number of outages on Town Hill Road. The three-phase power line will allow Eversource to isolate outages to smaller sections of the road instead of affecting all customers. The company also noted that three-phase service improves reliability, helps mitigate power surges, and can be attractive for future development.

For residents, the immediate result will be a long period of construction crews working along Town Hill Road and the inevitable disruption. Eversource explained that when poles are replaced, wires are generally transferred from the old pole to the new one before the old pole can be removed.

But there may be a larger story behind the project.

Upgrading the line from single-phase to three-phase and increasing its voltage and capacity could make this portion of Sandisfield considerably more attractive for future development. Properties that today face limitations because of available electrical capacity could have greater opportunities once the upgraded system is in place.

One possibility is large-scale solar development. When a solar farm was proposed for acreage near Yanner Park nearly a decade ago, the lack of a three-phase system was cited as a major obstacle. This will be overridden by the new installation.

What appears at first to be a project to replace old utility poles may therefore become something considerably more significant: a major investment in the electrical capacity of Town Hill Road and potentially a new chapter in the future development of that part of Sandisfield.