ROBERTSDALE, Alabama — The city of Robertsdale could save up to half a million dollars on its electrical upgrades after bid openings for the system in September and October.

At its meeting Oct. 17 the Robertsdale City Council approved three bids totaling around $417,000, including $50,300 for poles with Baldwin Pole & Piling; $68,200 for transformers with Miss.-Tenn Transformers Inc., and $298,800 for pole line hardware with Utility Power/Cape Electrical Supply.

The total for the bids opened at the council’s regular meeting came in at about $100,000 less than originally anticipated, said city engineer Greg Smith.

Last year, the city borrowed $4.5 million for electrical system expansions, which include:

• Retain the 115 KV service point at the County Road 48 Substation, located just west of College Avenue.

• The East Substation, which is currently built to step down from 46 KV to 12 KV, will be dismantled, leaving the County Road 48 Substation as the only delivery point.

• All remaining downtown four KV distribution lines would be converted to 12 KV distribution lines.

• The city’s two four KV substations, the North Substation, located at St. Paul Street, just south of Michigan Street; and the South Substation, located on St. Paul Street, just south of Nebraska Street, would be dismantled using in-house labor.

• Several of the existing distribution lines would be upgraded.

The city also began negotiations to contract with the Municipal Electric Association of Georgia (MEAG), which was finalized in September.

The eight-year contract will run from Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2025. The contract covers only power generation fees, not power transmission, or SEPA fees, which are fixed by federal law, said Mayor Charles Murphy.

The city will continue to contract with the Southern Company for those fees, officials said, while the new contract with MEAG should bring the city’s electrical rates back to 2012 levels.

The council also voted in September to approve bid results with Stewart Engineering electrical consultants, based in Anniston, for system upgrades.

In total, Smith said, the original project estimate of $4.3 million will probably only cost the city somewhere between $3.8 million and $3.9 million.

“There are always unforeseen costs, but at this point I don’t foresee the project costing more than $4 million,” Smith said. That leaves around $500,000 to spend on other projects.

“I have some things in mind,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

In other business Oct. 17, the council approved a plan to help with lighting improvements for the Robertsdale High School baseball complex.

The project, which will be done by LED (Lighting, Energy & Design) of Pensacola, will include replacement of fixtures and poles at a cost of just more than $58,000, plus the cost of wiring six poles from the fixtures to the base of the pole, estimated at $6,000; replacing the buried wiring feed, estimated at $12,000; and $4,000 for equipment rentals for unloading the poles and setting them, bringing the total cost of the project to just more than $80,000.

The Baseball Boosters have raised $60,000 for the improvements and will pay for the cost of fixtures and poles with the city paying the balance of $22,000 on the project.

In addition, the council approved the addition of two fields at the baseball complex at Garrett Park with a budget of $20,000 for the two poles and fixtures needed to complete the last two fields at the site, bringing the city’s total cost to $42,000.

In other business, the council:

• Agreed to allow St. Patrick’s Catholic Church to use the city’s digital billboard to promote its Christmas Bazaar event, which will be Dec. 2-4 at the church on Highway 59.

• Agreed to waive tapping fees for the 14-classroom addition being built at Central Baldwin Middle School, which will save the Baldwin County School System $2,000.

• Approved financing with Citizens’ Bank in Robertsdale for a dump truck and a trash truck for the city’s utilities department. Both loans are for 60 months at 4 percent interest with a total payment of just less than $4,700 per month. The measure was approved unanimously. Council member Paul Hollingsworth abstained from voting.