Commissioners get a look at new dam turbines
The Wanapum Dam will see all 10 of its turbines replaced within the next eight years.
Technology expected to increase power production, protect fish
The spacious room housing Wanapum Dam's 10 turbines was abuzz with the sound of a jackhammer pounding into a wall in a cavern deep below.
Above, at the watch deck, a handful of hard-hat-clad people looked down below, marveling at the beginning stages of a new turbine technology designed to improve both power generation and fish-survival rates.
"Impressive," Commissioner Vera Claussen murmured.
Yesterday afternoon, Grant County PUD commissioners and administrators observed first-hand the construction of the first advanced turbine design in the country at one of its two hydroelectric facilities.
Work on this first turbine is scheduled to take place throughout 2004, and field testing of the new turbine will take place in early 2005. If all goes well, the PUD plans to replace all 10 of the turbines with the advanced technology. The installation, operation and testing will take place over eight years.
The PUD received a grant of $2.4 million to help replace the 10 turbines that originally came into service in the 1960s, PUD spokesman Gary Garnant said.
According to the National Hydropower Association, the new turbines will increase the dam's efficiency and increase its power output by about 15 percent, from 900 megawatts to 1,038 megawatts.
"Grant County PUD's decision to install advanced hydropower turbine technology illustrates the hydropower industry's interest in harmonizing its projects as best it can with the environment in which it operates. This is an industry committed to stewardship and reducing its environmental footprint while continuing to provide millions of America's energy consumers with clean, renewable and reliable energy," Linda Church Ciocci, executive director of the National Hydropower Association, said in a news release.
"What's more, Grant's decision to move forward with this technology highlights the value of partnerships between industry and the federal government to address issues of mutual interest," Ciocci added.
Additionally, the PUD expects the new turbines to improve the passage of endangered juvenile migratory salmon - an important consideration in the relicensing of the PUD's Priest Rapids Hydroelectric Project. Upon passing through the turbines, the fish will often become dazed upon coming out the other side, leaving them vulnerable to predatory birds, Garnant said.
The new turbines will make the flow of water through the dam smoother and hopefully create less of a disruption for the migrating salmon, Garnant said.
Additionally, the PUD will make further modifications to hydraulic shapes in the dam's concrete structure and improve the wicket gates and stay vanes that direct water into the turbine area, according to a PUD news release.
The turbines also had the blessing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is responsible for relicensing the dams.
"We are ahppy to receive approval from FERC on behalf of Grant County PUD and the hydropower industry," Commission President Tom Flint said in a news release.