Running motors. Working pumps. Purple motorcyles. Candy. Lots of candy. Vendors will do almost anything to get the attention of the Energy Generation Conference attendees. The conference is held in Bismarck every January, and it features a large trade show with businesses peddling anything from soot blowers to fire alarms to lubricants and more — anything and everything needed to maintain the equipment that generates electricity.
Basin Electric’s procurement division makes valuable contacts there every year. On Jan. 26, contract administrator, Laura Skager, caught up with vendor Lawrence Slabodnik of Rocky Mountain Industrial Services, Denver. Watch the video to get a taste of the trade show and the connections made.
The conference’s keynote speaker is Jack Bacon of Epoch Production. He is giving a presentation titled Nonlinear Thinking in Energy Generation and Transmission.
Breakout sessions are also scheduled throughout the three-day conference along with professional development sessions. The sessions include presentations on a variety of topics including electrical, engineering, environmental, mechanical, operations, personal/career development, safety and support services.
With about 200 exhibitor booths set up, conference attendees have a variety of vendors to visit.
Rod Wetsch and Mike Lewis of Dakota Gasification Company, and Russ Bosch, Duane Miller and Kelly Cozby of Basin Electric, are on the executive committee responsible for helping plan the event. They join 24 other industry representatives.
It is one of 16 new projects Chevrolet recently announced it is supporting to prevent up to 8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the air during the next five years. Of the 16 projects, six were chosen to be featured on Chevrolet’s website. The recovered energy generation unit is one of those six, billed as “Pipeline Heat Recovery” on the website.
Go to Chevy’s website to see the campaign. You’ll want to click on the icon to the right of the wind turbine: Carbon Stories
Collin Applegate lost his leg in a farm accident in October. Just two months later, he was back on the wrestling mat at Riverside High School in Oakland, IA.
Oct. 8 was like most fall Saturdays on the Applegates’ 2,500-acre farm three miles west and one mile north of Oakland, a city of about 1,500 that is 30 miles east of Omaha. There was work to be done, and Collin was in the middle of it.
A few miles away, at a farm the family rents, Collin and a friend were hooking up a manure wagon to move it back home. Collin was between the tractor and the wagon when the tractor rolled back, crushing his lower left leg between the tractor hitch and the pump.
The boys immediately called for help on their cellphones. Collin’s friend used his lifeguard training, telling Collin to take off his shirt and wrap it around the leg to slow the bleeding. He reassured Collin and remained on the line with 911 while waiting for an ambulance. Read more.
In December, construction at Deer Creek Station was 85 percent complete.
Gavin McCollam, project manager on Deer Creek Station, says, “Most of the major mechanical is all done, a lot of the piping is done, and now the big push is the electrical and controls.” Watch the video.
The air cooled condenser is almost complete. The wind walls are going up, some of the last pieces to put in place. In mid-December, the electrical system reached backfeed, meaning electricity was successful fed from the transmission grid back to the plant.
“As you can see, they’ve pretty much finished the shell of the plant, the outside, it looks now, when you drive by, pretty much the way it’s gonna look when it’s done. It looks nice.”
In February, contractor Boldt Construction will turn the plant over to Basin Electric for commissioning. Later this spring, the plan is to fire the gas turbine for the first time. McCollam says there are 400 contract workers still on site, and about 25 Basin Electric operations employees.
A 400-ton crane lifts the Philip transformer onto its new pad at the Watford City Substation.
Oh, if this transformer could talk, the stories it would tell. The 172,000-pound transformer from Western Area Power Administration‘s Philip, SD, substation traveled nearly 1,000 miles to reach its final destination at Western’s substation near Watford City, ND, on Jan. 11.
A quick look at any map can tell a person it’s not a 1,000-mile journey between Philip and Watford City, but circumstances required a sizable detour through Baker and Roundup, MT, to avoid oil field traffic and soft roads.
Dwight Barth, Basin Electric logistics/contract administrator, arranged the complicated logistics for the transport of the 230/115-kilovolt transformer. He’s moved bigger things over longer distances, but this one posed special challenges. Watch the video to hear him describe them.
Bryan Keller, Basin Electric manager of Transmission System Maintenance (TSM), says the transformer was removed from its pad at Philip in September 2011. It was stored until it was time to make the trip to North Dakota.
Lee Holden, Basin Electric substation superintendent, coordinated the transformer move from the TSM side. Western will use the transformer to serve load at Watford City when their upgraded Charlie Creek-to-Williston transmission line begins operation at 230 kilovolts later this spring.
Philip Substation’s new transformer is having an interesting journey of its own. It’s been delayed at the factory and should be delivered by the end of March. In the meantime, Philip is transformerless, and power is being rerouted.
Basin Electric and Western have a long history of working together through their partnership in the Integrated System. Learn more about this powerful partnership.
Welcome to Patrick Hurt’s office. He’s the lead wind technician at the PrairieWinds ND 1 facilities south of Minot, ND. He and his fellow techs inarguably have the best views in the cooperative.
Hurt’s days are busy. Between troubleshooting, working with contractors and doing maintenance, it’s a lot to get done. North Dakota’s climate affects what gets done from day to day. On extremely cold days, some equipment in the turbines simply cannot operate. And wind chills can be dangerous for technicians. But fighting through the frigid weather is worth it for the reward of the good days, he says.
Watch the video to get a feel for a day in the life of a wind turbine technician.
Be sure to pick up a copy the January/February 2012 issue of Basin Today magazine and look for a feature on Patrick Hurt and the work he does for one of the nation’s largest wind projects owned solely by a cooperative.
The Ronald McDonald Care Mobile will help take care of dental problems for low-income children in western North Dakota. It is a dentist’s office on wheels. It arrived in Bismarck Jan. 4, and will be ready to treat children by February.
When children suffer from dental problems, their trouble isn’t limited to their teeth. Studies show that even minor dental problems can cause children to do worse in school and end up with large emergency room bills when left untreated.
The Ronald McDonald House identifies the schools in greatest need by using the North Dakota Public Schools System free/reduced lunch program statistics. This identifies the percentage of low-income students as candidates for this dental service.
A view of the room at Mitt Romney's caucus reception.
Dale Niezwaag, Basin Electric senior legislative representative, traveled to Iowa for the 2012 Iowa caucuses Jan. 3.
Here is Niezwaag’s account:
I found the Iowa caucus experience very interesting. I was lucky enough to have a behind-the-scenes tour from a resident expert, Tim Coonan from the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives. We started off by stopping at the campaign headquarters of Mitt Romney, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry.
At Mitt Romney’s headquarters (an empty Blockbuster Video store) there was buzz of noise as approximately 30 people with lists in front of them were making calls to prospective caucus-goers encouraging them to vote for Mitt. Most of the crowd was under 30 years old and there was a table full of Taco John’s 12-pack taco bags, to either keep them going or ruin their health. Continue reading →
