Utilities are building again. From the upgrade of the 500-kV Path 15 in California and the rebuilding of Chicago's downtown infrastructure to the massive Bethel-Norwalk project in Connecticut, utilities are again planning, designing and building transmission facilities.

Over the past 20 years, utilities focused predominantly on putting in spur transmission and placing individual substations to meet customers' specific needs. This piecemeal approach is no longer sufficient. Today, we are entering an era where utilities must build out their systems if they are to increase the overall capacity of the power delivery system and meet load growth projections. Texas has already made major investments in transmission infrastructure, and utilities throughout the country are following that lead.

After decades of downsizing and restructuring, many utilities no longer have the option to tackle all aspects of a typical large-scale project with in-house staff. Add to that the loss of technical talent as baby boomers retire over the next decade. Some utilities are restaffing while technical talent still remains to train the incoming generation. Other utilities have decided not to invest heavily in rebuilding their talent pool, instead partnering with vendors to tackle major projects. This pleases engineering and contracting firms that can move resources from region to region as work opens up.

Managing Major Projects

Utilities have a history of living by the “request for proposal” and dying by the “change order.” With smaller projects, utilities can't afford to invest significant up-front time and resources to plan smaller jobs, but large projects are a different matter. Mike Rowe, director of Engineering and Asset Management at Kansas City Power & Light, shares the perspective he gained when he was leading the initiative to upgrade the downtown Chicago network after a series of blackouts in 1999.

“While at ComEd, I worked for Jim Williams, who was then vice president of contracts. Williamns had seen quite a lot in his career, coming to ComEd from Morrison Knudsen,” Rowe says. “While managing commercial construction work, Williams came to the conclusion it was counterproductive to change the scope or design of major projects once underway. He realized that too often an idea made on-the-fly came back to bite everyone involved.

“Williams encouraged every person who had reason to touch a major project to give input on the front-end, and in so doing, produced the best possible schedule and scope of work. If someone dragged their feet or didn't spend the time to look the work over, then that person would just have to live with the consequences. Once all parties bought in, everyone pushed as hard as they could to accomplish the work as laid out.”

Rowe discovered during the rebuild that some contractors responded well to this strategy, correctly figuring that if contractors innovated as they worked, they would be in the best position to land future projects. Rowe was particularly impressed with the work of contractor Kenny Construction.

Karl Miller, an executive manager with Kenny, recalls the early days of their work with ComEd. “At first we were working with ComEd on an engineer, procure, construct (EPC) basis, and we thought we were being successful. Then we went to a ‘time and material not to exceed,’” says Miller. “Then Mike Rowe came to us and asked to take an additional 25% to 30% of cost out of the work. We thought we were already doing everything we could. But Mike agreed that ComEd would work with us in every way possible, so we gave it a go. ComEd agreed to take the risk out of the business by going to an alliance team concept selecting Kenny and S&L as contractor/engineer of choice. Together, we looked at every opportunity to reduce costs. We lengthened schedules so we no longer had to stack trades. We scheduled concrete work so we didn't pour in the winter. We opened our books so we could track every single dollar.”

Miller says that success came down to planning with no more fast-track, hand-to-mouth engineering.

Warren Vahle, a director with S&L, was in on major projects for ComEd from the beginning. S&L did the design, inspection, quality control and commissioning work. They also designed the high-voltage systems and specified the communications and SCADA systems. “We started working together on the Kingsbury indoor substation, which was a firm-price turnkey project,” says Vahle. “Then we moved over to the State Street Substation, which was a ‘time and material not to exceed.’”

Vahle's recollections on cost savings obtained under subsequent vendor-of-choice work were similar to Miller's. “The savings were not rocket science. We went to series construction, we levelized the skilled workforce, we managed repetitive jobs, and we got out of major wintertime civil work,” continues Vahle.

Christine Hunter, manager of Chicago projects for ComEd, sees ComEd reaping the benefits from relationships developed over time. “We've been able to incorporate so many lessons learned in both the design and construction phases, because we have kept the same team together,” says Hunter. “It is more than just business with us,” states Hunter, “I just love working with the Kennys.”

Kenny and S&L have come to realize the business alliance concept is transportable. They entered into another alliance initiative on PacifiCorp's Quantum Leap project and are now looking to extend this concept in Wisconsin.

Too Much Work, Too Little Time, Too Few Resources

Southern California Edison (SCE) is embarking on a major building spree. It has spent US$3 billion in transmission construction over the past three years and will spend an additional $11 billion over the next decade, according to Jerry Amalfitano, manager of Transmission and Civil/Structural Engineering at SCE. This utility downsized significantly in 1997, but realized it needed to staff up to meet the energy needs of its customers and began hiring in significant numbers in 2003.

If Amalfitano and his team are to bring in the proposed transmission projects, they must address limited resources, retain core competencies, overcome regulatory hurdles and meet tight schedules.

Last year, to address a critical need in the transmission and substation engineering organization, SCE hired more than 50 new people. Because the need at SCE is so great, Amalfitano expects the work to stretch over a decade. SCE realizes it must not overwhelm the new hires but bring them along carefully. SCE is tackling some of the smaller construction projects internally, but is looking to use outside engineering services and design-build contracts to tackle major work. One of the biggest initiatives at SCE is the Viejo System project to provide reliable service and to meet growing customer load in the southern Orange County area. The project includes the building of the Viejo 230/66-kV substation as well as a 66-kV power line to run from the Viejo Substation to the Chiquita Substation. The California Public Utility Commission approved the substation project in July 2004. The electrical equipment has been installed at the substation, which is scheduled to go into service in August 2005.

LADWP Builds the Toluca-Van Nuys Line

Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) completed its second 230-kV transmission line in April 2004, setting several underground high-voltage records in the two-section expansion. The 10-mile (16-km) overhead and underground transmission line from the Toluca Lake Receiving Station to the Van Nuys Receiving Station includes a 5.6-mile (9-km) underground portion. The Toluca-Van Nuys Line, which crosses under Burbank Boulevard in Los Angeles, adds 160 MW of system capacity to accommodate the anticipated load growth and upcoming hot summer months in the San Fernando Valley. Through competitive bidding, Henkels & McCoy was awarded the underground installation on both substation line expansions.

Let's Get Building

As an industry, we have hit the bottom of the building cycle and we are going into building mode. With existing lines and substations heavily used and load growth increasing, we are seeing money flowing into infrastructure. All utilities must approach planning, design, engineering and construction needs in ways that best enable the utility to leverage allowable resources and meet specific business strategies. Whether hiring engineering firms and contractors for specific tasks, embracing turnkey outsourcing or embracing long-term alliances, utilities are once again setting transformers and stringing wire.

Toluca-Van Nuys Line Details

The Toluca-Van Nuys Line took two years to install and was put in service ahead of schedule in April 2004. Most of the underground portion was installed by open trench. Because of the significant amounts of underground excavation, the environmental impact was minimized by a unique design for conservative placement of maintenance manholes. Larger-than-normal room-size subsurface vaults were installed to accommodate system testing equipment, switching gear and as many as five technicians. Because of the large vault design, fewer manholes had to be excavated, which saved on excavation and material costs, and reduced the impact on residences and the businesses during construction phase. LADWP was responsible for the remaining overhead tie-ins to the substations. The cable used on the underground section is composed of a crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) insulation, manufactured by Furukawa. A temperature-sensing optical fiber was embedded in the cable jacket, enabling real-time monitoring to pinpoint hot spots.

The job entailed installing 5.5 miles (3 phase circuit, 3 × 5.5 = 16.5 miles) of single-circuit, 230-kV XLPE 1000-kcmil underground transmission cable. There were 72 cable pulls, cable/conduit racking at 23 maintenance holes and 69 fiber splices in the 23 maintenance manholes. Prefabricated, multipiece splice joint assemblies were used for the XLPE cable connections. The job also included six cable terminations and the work associated with the fiber-optic temperature detection systems.

The project team consisted of more than 30 full-time technical personnel including engineers, construction crews, quality control, safety and inspectors provided by Henkels & McCoy and LADWP.