Nearly ten years ago, City Utilities acquired an additional service area from another water provider in the northern portion of the Northwest High Pressure Zone. As a result of that increased demand, an upgrade to the Northwest Pump Station #1 (NWPS) was completed, including the addition of pumps to maintain current demand. That upgrade was finally completed in 2014. Much of the existing electrical equipment remains and dates back to the mid- 1980s when the station was originally installed and is reaching or exceeding the expected design expectancy. Failure of the electrical equipment (MCC, variable frequency drives and controls equipment) and subsequent failure of the station would result in impacts to the Fort Wayne area water service customers. Even though the project was completed in 2014, upgrades to the NWPS were still necessary with Wessler’s team providing evaluations, design and construction administration work.
Wessler’s design team and field staff completed an evaluation of the existing equipment and made recommendations for needed replacement. This included a review of the condition of the existing equipment, availability of parts and service, failure risk analysis and an evaluation for the use of VFDs over soft starts.
At the completion of the evaluation, Wessler’s team began work on the design of the electrical improvement project that would allow City officials to contract for the procurement and replacement of the aging equipment. The project included replacement of the entire electrical system from the load side of the existing automatic transfer switch, removal of the existing electrical system including motor control center, variable frequency drives and an existing dehumidification system. The project also included installation of new electrical equipment including a power panel, reduced voltage solid state starters, conduit and wire, relocation of existing power monitoring equipment, and other improvements.
One of the key components of the design project was documenting the existing cable routing and panel layouts. One panel in particular was a result of several past project tie-ins and City staff did not have a good understanding or documentation of the wiring. Before Wessler staff could recommend a design approach, we first had to understand the existing conditions. Our field crew worked directly with facility maintenance and electrical staff to trace, identify, label and document all of the panel wires; providing a valuable resource for this project and future projects.
