The Sweetwater Authority (Authority) Governing Board voted to become a member of the Statewide Community Infrastructure Program (SCIP). The resolution passed at last night’s Governing Board meeting means that the Authority is now a member of the Statewide Communities Development Authority.
You might not think ‘baking skills’ would come in handy to fix a recent problem at the Lake Hodges Hydroelectric and Pump Station Facility. But those skills, along with initiative and ingenuity, were demonstrated by San Diego County Water Authority staff as part of the creative and complex repair.
The facility connects the City of San Diego’s Hodges Reservoir with the Water Authority’s Olivenhain Reservoir. The connection provides the ability to store up to 20,000 acre-feet of water at Hodges for emergency use.
You might not think ‘baking skills’ would come in handy to fix a recent problem at the Lake Hodges Hydroelectric and Pump Station Facility. But those skills, along with initiative and ingenuity, were demonstrated by San Diego County Water Authority staff as part of the creative and complex repair.
The facility connects the City of San Diego’s Hodges Reservoir with the Water Authority’s Olivenhain Reservoir. The connection provides the ability to store up to 20,000 acre-feet of water at Hodges for emergency use.
The Lake Hodges Hydroelectric and Pump Station Facility moves water between Olivenhain and Hodges, and is able to generate up to 40 megawatts of energy on demand, helping to manage electrical demands throughout the County. It also generates revenue and helps offset energy costs.
A ground fault alarm on August 25, 2019 alerted staff to a potential problem with Unit 2, one of the facility’s two 20-MW pump-turbine units. A series of tests and inspections by staff with the Water Authority’s Rotating Equipment team discovered the insulation on the copper bus bars of the generator’s rotor were worn and damaged. The bus bars are part of a system that provides DC power to the 12 electromagnets which surround the outer surface of the pump turbine unit’s rotor.
The rotors are designed to spin at 600 revolutions per minute and it’s the rotor’s electromagnets acting upon the stators windings that generates power. The electromagnets are connected together by copper bus bars located on top of the rotor and the bus bars are secured to the rotor by clamping plates and rim studs. The bus bars are insulated to ensure the copper does not touch any other metal surface and cause an inadvertent ground fault.
“Although a single ground fault may not damage the pump-turbine unit, it may prevent it from starting, if two ground faults were to occur, significant damage to the pump-turbine unit would occur and would also be an extreme danger to anyone within the facility,” said Jim Fisher, Water Authority director of operations and maintenance.
Among various factors, the primary cause of the insulation failure was determined to be improper wrapping and curing of the insulation during initial installation.
Water Authority staff developed solutions and also took on the repair tasks in September. By doing the work in-house, the Water Authority avoided a more extensive outage due to long lead times required by contractors and vendors to perform the same work, saving time and money.
“Staff did an excellent job maintaining the operation of Unit 1 while making the repairs to Unit 2,” said Fisher, “which allowed the Water Authority to avoid a total shutdown and loss of all revenue during this period.”
Initiative and ingenuity by San Diego County Water Authority staff led to a creative repair solution at the Lake Hodges Hydroelectric and Pump Station Facility. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
New copper bus bars were fabricated, and each had to be precisely wrapped by 5 different types of insulating tape materials. This wrapping process alone took approximately 8 hours per bus bar. The bus bars were then baked for ten hours within newly designed and fabricated aluminum molds to ensure proper pressure was applied to the insulation layers during the baking and curing process.
Staff efficiently re-purposed and utilized an oven that had been retained from the San Vicente Dam Raise Project to perform the baking. The Rotating Equipment team’s efforts produced excellent quality results which would have been difficult even for a vendor to meet. The newly insulated bus bars were re-installed, and the unit has been operating safely and without issues.
“The initiative, ingenuity, and highly technical skills and knowledge of our staff were once again on display throughout the repairs,” said Fisher. “Their dedication, talents and outstanding efforts continue to ensure the Facility’s efficient and safe operation.”
Unit #2 was tested and placed back into service on November 17, 2019.
Along with the bus bar insulation and curing process repair, staff also performed many other highly technical, innovative and precise processes to complete this repair work.
San Diego is experiencing considerably fewer breaks in water mains and sewer lines thanks to continuing replacement of deteriorating cast iron pipes, according to a year-end report released Wednesday.
A total of 38 water main breaks were reported in the city in 2019, a 38% reduction from the previous year. It was the lowest total in 15 years and far less than the peak of 131 breaks in 2010.
A new pipeline inspection tool being used by contractors working for the Vallecitos Water District to determine pipeline integrity could become a standard tool saving time and money.
After nearly completing construction in 2008, developers walked away from the 500-acre High Point subdivision in the City of Escondido. Water facilities installed for the subdivision were left unused for ten years.
SAN DIEGO — San Diego sharply reduced the number of water main breaks and sewer spills across the city last year, saving ratepayers money and helping many neighborhoods avoid significant disruptions.
City officials credited the decreases to ramped-up maintenance and replacement efforts on water mains, sewer lines and pipes, particularly those made of cast iron.
And to further reduce breaks and spills, San Diego officials say they will soon begin using drones and other monitoring devices to look for early warning signs of potential problems.
The Trump administration has put one of the largest new water projects on the Colorado River on the fast track, raising concerns among environmentalists.
Utah first proposed building a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border more than a decade ago. The plan, however, was waylaid by environmental and other reviews during the Obama administration.
But last fall, the Utah Division of Water Resources updated the proposal, removing a hydropower plant and cutting $100 million from its price tag.
The move also changed which federal agency had jurisdiction over it — from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Rich Sorkin, CEO of Jupiter Intelligence, sees more than raging fires, rising seas and damaging winds in a warming world.
He also sees a business opportunity.
Sorkin, a longtime technology entrepreneur who’s worked in financial services and energy, is leading Jupiter, a Silicon Valley startup that analyzes physical and financial risks tied to climate change.
POWAY — A piece of rope “inexplicably” became lodged in a valve separating a 10-million gallon reservoir from a storm drain in late November, causing a nearly week-long, costly boil-water advisory in Poway, a report prepared by the city for the state concludes.
Officials say it is unknown how the sizable piece of rope got stuck in the valve, which was supposed to remain closed but instead became stuck open, thereby allowing muddy water to enter the city’s reservoir — called a clearwell — near Lake Poway during a storm.
Three California state agencies today released a draft water resilience portfolio intended to help the state manage more extreme droughts and floods, aging infrastructure, declining fish populations and other challenges.
The California Natural Resources Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Food and Agriculture developed the draft to fulfill Governor Gavin Newsom’s April 29, 2019 executive order calling for a portfolio of actions to ensure the state’s long-term water resilience and ecosystem health.
“The portfolio approach to water supply reliability is a significant advance in how our most precious resource is managed statewide, in line with our long-term strategy in San Diego County,” said Sandra L. Kerl, general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority. “As we review the details of the new plan, we will continue collaborating with the state agencies and other partners to turn this vision into a reality that benefits our region.”
Sweetwater Authority Logo 2019