Near I-55 Exit 39 in Central/Southwestern Illinois, not far from the town of Hamel, on the west side of the road is some sort of facility/structure that I drove past yesterday on my way home. On Google Maps it’s labeled “Midwest Power Partners,” so it has something to do with electricity.
It’s hard to tell from the road, and even harder to tell from the Google Maps photo I’m linking to, but basically it’s an array of structures about 5-10 feet off the ground, with large (several inches in diameter) wires hanging from them. The tops don’t appear to have solar panels on them (although again, hard to tell from the road, and really, solar energy isn’t really ideal in this part of the country anyway). The entire structure appears to be laid out in a square or grid, a few hundred feet by a few hundred feet.
Given the wires and the fact that it’s labeled “…Power,” my first thought was that it’s an electrical substation, although it looks like no electrical substation I’ve ever seen.
Any thoughts?
