Your PUD
News Release
Work planned for first Rock Island Dam generators
Chelan County PUD
News Release
12/17/2007
The four original generators in the first powerhouse at Rock Island Dam will be modernized starting in 2009. Monday, PUD commissioners awarded a $10.6 million contract to Voith-Siemens Hydropower Generation Inc. of York, Penn., to supply four stators for the units. Two of the generators will be installed in 2009 and the other two in 2014.
Chris Church, PUD engineering director, said the generators were installed in the 1930s and last refurbished in the 1950s. Rock Island Dam, 15 miles south of Wenatchee, was the first dam to span the Columbia River. Other components of the generators will be repaired and reused for the project, estimated at a total of $19.6 million.
That work will be coordinated with modernization of the B5-B10 turbine and generators, already under way.
Hydropower approved to offset greenhouse gas
PUD commissioners Monday approved joining the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and being the first in the United States to register the renewable qualities of hydropower to be traded to offset carbon emissions.
Click here for details about the PUD’s participation in the CCX.
In a related action, commissioners agreed to a different method to sell renewable energy credits related to the District’s 12.5-percent share of power generated at the Nine Canyon wind farm for the last half of 2006 through the first six months of 2007. Depending on the market price of the credits per ton of CO2 emissions avoided, that sale could bring about $75,000.
In other business, commissioners:
- Received an update on the winter closure of the foothills trail west of Wenatchee that crosses the lower section of 960 acres of PUD wildlife refuge. The trail is closed to protect mule deer. Von Pope, PUD wildlife program manager, said the District is working closely with the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust on the winter closure and to ensure future access. State wildlife agents are concerned about disturbing mule deer that use the area for winter habitat. Depending on weather, the trail will reopen in mid-March 2008.
- Presented former PUD Commissioner Gary Montague of Wenatchee with a Life Heritage Member award from the Washington PUDs Association. Former commissioner Bob Boyd of Peshastin also received the award and accepted his at a WPUDA meeting earlier this month in Seattle.
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PUD commissioners canceled the Dec. 24 and Dec. 31, 2007, meetings due to the Christmas and New Year holidays.
The next regular meeting of the PUD commission is at 9 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, in the boardroom at PUD headquarters, 327. N. Wenatchee Ave.
Most PUD commission meetings are recorded, and a link to the audio is available on the PUD’s home page at www.chelanpud.org.
Kimberlee Craig
Public Information Officer
509-661-4320, direct line
509-679-6858, cell
kimberlee.craig@chelanpud.org