Barton Village, Inc.

The Barton Village Electric Department located in the heart of the Northeast Kingdom is a rural distribution utility which surrounds Orleans County’s summer recreation destinations of Lake Willoughby and Crystal Lake.

The village was incorporated in 1894 and currently serves 2,100 electric customers in the greater Barton area including the Village of Barton as well as portions of six surrounding towns including Barton, Brownington, Irasburg, Sutton, Charleston, and Westmore. Barton serves a predominantly residential customer load, with approximately 74% of annual retail sales coming from the residential class.

Barton Village Line Crew builds a new line extension in the Town of Barton

The line crew maintains a distribution system of roughly 200 miles. In addition to their regular duties to provide reliable power, the team is currently embarking on an ambitious long overdue upgrade to convert the system’s remaining 2400/4160 wye voltage lines to 7620/13200 wye. Upgrading Barton’s voltage is anticipated to significantly improve the system’s line loss resulting in long term sustainable customer value.

Barton Village Hydroelectric Project on the Clyde River in West Charleston

The Barton Village Hydroelectric Project, FERC Project No. 7725-000, has been providing clean, renewable energy for the customers of Barton Village for more than 100 years. Both turbines at the generating plant can produce a combined maximum output of 1.25MW under ideal river flow conditions amounting to roughly half of Barton’s peak load. On March 29, 2019, the Barton Village Hydroelectric Project qualified for Low Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI) Certification.