A crane drives piles at the 200 million dollar cogen facility in Merritt BC Photo KDG

A crane drives piles at the 200 million dollar cogen facility in Merritt BC
Photo KDG

A few years ago the provincial hydro authority wanted to add another generator to the Revelstoke Dam to fill the 4th bay of the  five  bay dam site, they could not get a contractor for the project so the billion dollar project went into a holding pattern. Since that time it has been resolved and that generator is on stream.

Today the hydro news letter is saying another increase in generating ability is being done on the 40 year old WAC Bennett dam on the Peace river in north eastern BC. The Gordon M. Shrum Generating Station  is getting attention :

“There’s nothing else like it,” says Gammer. “There are lots of other dams and generating stations in the province, of course, but this is the biggest one we have.” Keeping GMS operational at all times is critical to maintaining provincial power reliability. That’s the thinking behind continual maintenance programs that aim to keep dam and generating station equipment in good working order. Staff work year-round to maintain the day-to-day reliability, but as with all facilities, the time comes when regular maintenance just isn’t enough. “GMS is more than 40 years old and large parts are starting to wear out and need replacement,” says Gammer. One way to think of it, he says, is to think of maintenance on your home. Good maintenance like repairing cracks, cleaning gutters and updating appliances is necessary all the time, but eventually, he says, you’re going to need to do major repairs, such as replacing your roof. “And we did that very thing at Peace Canyon.” There’s a lengthy and complex capital program underway at GMS and W.A.C. Bennett to complete these major repairs. Along with maintaining the critical reliability, these heritage facilities are benefiting from the improved technology and equipment available today. Just like you’ll get more out of a laptop manufactured today compared to a computer manufactured in the 1980’s, new equipment such as transformers and turbines perform more efficiently today compared to those installed when GMS first went into service.

  • Replacing transformers at GMS. Transformers increase the voltage at the station to 500,000 volts to efficiently carry electricity over long distances, and 12 of the 30 transformers at GMS have been replaced over the last five years.

  • Replacing five turbine runners at GMS. Through the power of falling water, the turbines rotate at 150 rpm, spinning the connected equipment in the generator to produce electricity. This multi-year project will wrap up in 2017.

  • Upgrading the control system for the generating station. The unit controls on all 10 generating units needs to be replaced. Work is already underway on the second unit in this multi-year project.

  • Rip-rap upgrade on the outside of the dam face. Large rock (rip-rap) protects the upstream face of the WAC Bennett Dam from wave erosion. The current plan is to start rip-rap replacement in the summer of 2016, after obtaining all permits and regulatory approvals.

  • Spillway Chute Upgrade. Upgrades and repairs are required to improve the condition of sections of the spillway, which is 680 metres long and 30 metres wide. source http://www.bchydro.com/news/conservation/2014/gm-shrum-generating-station.html?WT.mc_id=c-14-11_upgrades

Four and a half million people in BC get some power from the station and as a lot of hydro infrastructure, it needs attention, and hydro is going strong on projects about the province. Pick up trucks and crews are out and about all over here and from replacing cedar poles with pine treated poles with arsenic and copper to new 500 KV lines electricity is big stuff here. BC hydro power and authority has a legislated monopoly on every drop of water in the province for power generation and has had difficulty in recent years in licencing out some of that ability ( the run of the rivers sub licencing) and keeping the cost of that cogeneration down. A co generation project here in Merritt will see a green energy project ( burning green wood waste ) use the public electric grid to sent that recapture into the grid. But at what price we wonder. Missing here are wind turbines ( wrong kind of wind, to gusty) and solar energy capture.  We are on the EV charging station grid and hope it is more then just public relations. The most successful public relations program Hydro ever had in our view was the `it works like a dam `conservation project and to the prudent it should still be in the mind of all rate payers in the province. The production of hydro power while attractive in its lack of smokestacks does not add to the nitrogen cycle as properly managed petro chemicals do. Fertilizer for crops and stirred up nutrients for food chain are important as well. Toxic substance should be removed and carbon sinks of large crop lands enhanced as well as conservation.  Thrift in waste is an economic opportunity  as shown in places like California in recent years.

Today in history: November 5th 2003:

Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway pleads guilty to 48 murders.