McKenzie Rotary Learns about Paris BPU

McKENZIE (May 13) — Terry Wimberley, President and CEO of Paris Board of Public Utilities (BPU), was the featured speaker at the May 13 meeting of the Rotary Club of McKenzie.

McKenzie is a tri-county city in Carroll, Henry, and Weakley counties. Paris BPU serves 80 customers in McKenzie, including major industries Allegion, Profile Metals, Haven Steel, and Shomaker Lumber in the Henry County portion of McKenzie.

Wimberley said the electricity and water/sewer distributor is partnering with TEC, an internet provider, to expand high-speed internet throughout the county.

The project will make some 500 miles of high-speed fiber internet available to over 10,000 residents and businesses with connections starting later this year.  It will provide an alternative to other internet providers. BPU will provide the fiber optic cabling and TEC will provide the internet service over that fiber.

Wimberley had as his guests, David Flowers, chairman of the board of BPU, and John Etheridge, former president and CEO of BPU.

BPU constructed a substation near Republic/Allegion to provide consistent electric service to the north McKenzie area. Wimberley said the local power distributors in Carroll, Henry and Weakley all work together to ensure the citizens have reliable power. In an emergency, Carroll and Henry can interconnect service lines to restore power in areas. The line crews often work with each other during major storms and outages during mutual aid events.

Paris BPU was one of the first in the area to work with Silicon Ranch, a Tennessee-based company, to install a solar array on the local distribution network. That solar array is located in Puryear, and Allegion purchases the ‘green’ power in McKenzie.

Carroll County Electric and Silicon Ranch partnered to build a solar array in Trezevant to supply electricity to the local power distributor. Silicon Ranch’s array will go online this summer.