Come hail or high water, Transmission’s construction crews persevere

Through snowstorms, wildfire smoke, torrential rain and freezing temperatures, a team of more than 70 electricians and carpenters perseveres to build the Bonneville Power Administration’s substations. These stalwart tradespeople make up Central Electrical Services, a subgroup of the Construction and Maintenance Services organization under Transmission Services. Focused primarily on substation construction, this team is critical to ensuring BPA can fulfill its mission of reliably and safely transmitting power across its five-state territory.

BPA’s construction crews operate out of the Ross Complex in Vancouver, but they are most often on the road four to five days a week in full-time travel status, tackling projects that can last months.

“The construction teams have the possibility of working the entire service territory,” said Ron Payne, Central Electrical Services manager. “While crews are based out of Vancouver, very few projects take place nearby, so that means a lot of time being on the road and living in hotels or trailers.”

Only the most inclement conditions, such as an electrical storm or a whiteout, deter BPA’s construction teams from their work. Even without difficult weather present, the job often requires working overtime and through the weekend to meet deadlines dictated by coordinated outages, emergency equipment failure or grid modernization targets.

“The standard procedure is to make every attempt to get to work,” said Scotty Dalton, electrician foreman I. “If we didn’t go to work every time it snowed, we wouldn’t meet our outage schedule, and missing a deadline affects more than just the crew. It affects future outages, planners, schedulers, power grid management and much more.”

In December, Dalton and other crewmembers endured heavy snowfall to complete several updates at John Day Substation outside of The Dalles, Oregon. The project included installing new equipment, including a 500-kilovolt circuit breaker with a current transformer. The team also laid polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, pipes as conduits for wiring underground – a process that involved using a rock hammer to sledge through frozen ground and solid rock around the breaker pads.

“We work through everything. It snows, we work. It’s raining sideways with wind blowing 30 miles per hour, we work,” said Daniel Hoofnagle, electrician. “When wildfire smoke is so thick we wear personal protective equipment to protect our lungs, we work. We tackle whatever jobs need to get done despite the weather conditions, every day.”

At Fairview Substation near the coastal town of Coquille, Oregon, electrician foreman III Darin Such’s team persists through dreary, wet conditions to complete work on a multiyear project that is integral for system reliability along the entire southern Oregon Coast. New equipment installations and seismic upgrades are underway to add a new bay in the substation’s 115-kV yard, which will feed a new line to BPA’s utility customer, Coos-Curry Electric Cooperative.

Such’s team has already installed 25,000 feet of new PVC conduit at Fairview for underground cable paths, an impressive feat given the area’s high water table requires using pumps to move water out of drenched excavation areas. Keeping water at bay also involves trenching and shoring to make it safe for workers to enter the excavation site and perform their work.

“I am proud of this crew for its ability to work as a team and work through challenges as they appear,” said Such. “They collaborate and bounce different thoughts and ideas off each other to overcome the challenge at hand. With the combined knowledge of a very diverse group, there is nothing that we are not able to accomplish.”

Such also credits the heavy equipment operators with Central Electrical Service’s partner group, Specialty Services, for the ability to triumph over the tricky conditions. “We have very experienced equipment operators here at BPA who are highly skilled at their craft and make the work we do run smoother,” he said.

Working alongside the electricians are Central Electrical Service's skilled carpenters whose craft is vital to all substation construction sites. They tackle a wide range of duties, such as installing fences, building and remodeling control houses, and improving storm water assets. Carpenters are also responsible for placing the concrete footings for all equipment in BPA's substations and switchyards. In late June of last year, supervisory work planner scheduler Jabez Richardson's crew of carpenters carried on through a heat wave to pour concrete in response to an outage at John Day Substation. With temperatures peaking at 117 degrees during the day, Richardson's crew diligently worked through the night so the concrete they needed wouldn't harden en route to the job site.

“We worked from 2 a.m. to noon, but we have to do what is needed to keep the lights on,” said Richardson. “And with no complaints, my crew jumped in and got the work done.”

For a team that battles through harrowing weather and odd hours to meet project deadlines, it’s no surprise that this hard-working group of electricians and carpenters value safety above all.

“First and foremost comes the safety of all crew members,” shared Dalton. “Knowing that, at the end of the day, everyone is going home without injuries is the first priority.”

And for a team that spends more nights on the road than at home, the importance of safety is closely followed by camaraderie and collaboration.

“Our crews spend more time together than we do with our own families. They travel over the entire BPA service area to make sure all of our projects get done on time and ensure our ratepayers get the power they are counting on,” said Richardson. “They are truly some of the most selfless, hardworking individuals I have ever met, and I am glad to call them friends and co-workers!”