The new contract will allow Ferguson to proceed with some of the wiring for various electrical components and other work at the LPGP site, including the installation of static exciters, generator circuit breakers, cable and pump-turbine unit instrumentation.
This is the second time this year that NYPA has contracted with Ferguson Electric for work on the LPGP. In June, it approved a nearly $1.6M contract award to the Buffalo firm for the design, manufacture, delivery and installation of electrical equipment and related components scheduled to be delivered later this year. In addition, the NYPA trustees approved a nearly $4M contract to Ferguson Electric in March 2011 for the installation of the new generator step-up transformers, also in support of the Lewiston Pump-Generating Plant LEM.
In June 2010, the NYPA trustees approved the investment of $460M for the 10-year LEM program, which will include major upgrades to all 12 pump-turbines and the replacement of generator step-up transformers. The transformers date back to 1961 when the Niagara project went into service. The current contract award to Ferguson is part of the trustees’ overall expenditure authorization from 2010.
The upgrades of the pump-turbine units will start in December and the unit work will occur under a schedule providing for the overhaul of a pump-turbine every eight to nine months, with the final unit completed in 2020. The phased-in schedule provides for 11 of the 12 LPGP units to be available for operation during the LEM so that NYPA can meet its commitments to its power-supply customers.
In 2006, NYPA completed a $24M maintenance program at LPGP in the same year that it finished a $298M, 15-year program to upgrade the Niagara project’s Robert Moses plant, where the Power Authority replaced turbines and retrofitted other components of all 13 generating units.
Together, LPGP and the Moses plant combine for a net dependable capability of 2441MW, making the Niagara project the largest generating facility in New York state and one of the largest in the country.
LPGP is one of two major pumped storage facilities in the state – the other being the Blenheim-Gilboa Pumped Storage Power Project, another NYPA facility. In May 2010, the Authority completed a four-year overhaul of that facility, in the northern Catskills.
