West Springfield 8C Substation
West Springfield, Mass.
Best Project and Award of Merit, Excellence in Safety
Owner:Eversource Energy
EPC承包商：Burns & McDonnell
为了满足区域增长和相应的负载要求，船员在40万美元的项目上转向了技术，以帮助解决重大空间限制。该项目取代了20世纪20年代的变电站，需要在施工期间保持运行。新的变电站必须位于现有变电站和网站的南部边界之间。许可证需要将网站边界从邻近的堤坝设置回15英尺，并且邻近工业站点的城市分区需要从站点边界额外的25英尺挫折。
“We had real space constraints because we had to keep the [industrial site] fully functional,” says Mike Drew, project manager at Burns & McDonnell. “We also had to minimize the amount of downtime for the various users of this power—hospitals, schools and others in the community.”
Working with vendor Siemens, the team designed a compact 115-kV three-in-one gas insulated switchgear substation. According to the team, the design includes a first-ever application in the U.S. of a Siemens circuit breaker monitoring system. The system allows prioritization of maintenance and detection of circuit breaker-related failures. Future crews can use the system to proactively repair a circuit breaker before a faulty and disruptive operation takes place.
The system also features gas density monitoring that provides advance warning of leaks as well as historical data and generates gas inventory reports. A unique overhead monopole design transitions from overhead lines to gas-insulated substation bushing. The overhead lines spiral down the monopole structure from a vertical to horizontal overhead line configuration. “I loved seeing the care with which all of these pipes and fittings were put together,” one judge said.
The project also created 13,000 sq ft of open space for future site expansion.
At the inception of the project, the Burns & McDonnell team performed a systematic overview of the project’s scope, with a focus on identifying potentially hazardous tasks, conditions and toxic or hazardous materials. Special training and procedures were developed to perform work activities. “Where we couldn’t mitigate things with design, we had additional workplans that reduce any potential risk down toward zero,” Drew says. During 125,000 worker-hours on the project, the team saw no OSHA recordable incidents and no lost-time accidents. Despite encountering some extreme winter weather conditions, the project was completed three months early and within budget.
