CapX 2020 xfmr inching toward Briggs Rd substation

Filed under:News coverage,Nuts & Bolts,Wisconsin — posted by admin on July 10, 2014 @ 5:58 pm

Here’s another video in Transmission and Distribution World.

It was stuck, too muddy to move into place, so they waited… and now, onward… waiting for the youtube, and until then, we get another transformer — a CapX 2020 video of the North Rochester transformer move:

Back to the nature trail near La Crosse. Love the photos, this one by Erik Daily of the La Crosse Tribune:

53be0a5b8ee99.preview-620

Transformer resumes slow journey

HOLMEN — A nearly 200-ton transformer destined for a new high-voltage substation resumed its slow journey Wednesday, a week after being sidelined by water-logged fields.

Riding on a 14-axle self-propelled trailer, the device crept through cornfields and across the Great River State bike trail en route to its eventual home in a substation being built on Briggs Road as part of the CapX2020 electric transmission project.

Crews in diesel material handlers assembled an oak “mat” to keep the load from sinking into the soil, picking up the beams as the trailer inched forward and placing them in its path.

Built in South Korea, the transformer traveled by ship to Houston and by train to a rail spur just a couple of miles from the substation. But a 20-ton bridge over Halfway Creek couldn’t bear the weight, said Rob Bullis, substation foreman for Xcel Energy.

Though smaller than a semi trailer, there’s more to this transformer than meets the eye. It weighs in at 387,000 pounds thanks to a half dozen coils inside its steel sheeting.

The transformer was expected to complete the final leg of its journey today with a jaunt up County Road XX and across a soybean field to the substation. Hydraulic rams on the trailer will nudge it down I-beam supports greased with dish soap until it can be lowered onto a concrete pad, where it will convert incoming electricity from the 345 kilovolts used for long-distance transmission to 161 kv.

The Briggs Road substation is one of six on the CapX2020, a $550 million high-voltage transmission line between Hampton, Minn., and Holmen.

Though Xcel has larger substations, Bullis said it will be the utility’s biggest built from scratch.

It’s expected to begin some operations in mid-September and to be fully operational in 2015.

one comment so far »

  1. Wouldn’t “built from scratch” meant we’re in trouble if anything were to happen to this customized built-from scratch transformer?

    Comment by Debra — July 11, 2014 @ 11:03 am

Copy link for RSS feed for comments on this post or for TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

(required)

(required)