Proposals involving electrical equipment reviewed by Trenton Utility Committee

Trenton Utility Committee
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Proposals involving electrical equipment were reviewed Wednesday evening by the Trenton Utility Committee and will advance for consideration at the Monday night meeting of the Trenton City Council.

A proposal from Altorfer Power Systems involves options to repair SCADA communications at the south substation between the seven Caterpillar generators and the SCADA programmable logic controller. Utility Director Ron Urton prefers an option that removes aging and obsolete controls and replaces them with current Caterpillar current technology controls. The estimated cost is $193,830. A less expensive option from Altorfer basically involves repairs to the controls in use. Urton said $94,000 has been budgeted for this project. The remaining $100,000 would come out of the electric departments’ cash reserve fund.

The RS Electric Company has four proposals for TMU – three of which have been budgeted. The company offers services and materials to provide “integration” services for the power plant. The cost for the work at the south substation is $65,000 for this year. It will cost another $65,000 next year for work at the north substation. Labor and materials for “integration” services with the SCADA upgrade at the waste-water plant are to cost $85,000. Labor and materials to install a chlorine analyzer for the disinfection building at the wastewater plant cost $21,500.

In what Utility Director Urton called a “have-to expense”, R-S Electric is offering a re-manufactured variable frequency drive, (VFD) high service pump for the water treatment plant. The cost is $17,920.

Bids from three companies were opened on Wednesday for a pump at the water reservoir. Urton reported the low bid of $399,000 was only $25,000 higher than the engineer’s estimate. This bid will be presented to the council at Monday night’s meeting. He noted the city needs to move quickly because of rising pump prices and delivery times. Urton provided his concerns that piping materials for the reservoir pump station are projected to take 40 weeks to be available. Pumps, he said, will take 12 to 16 weeks to arrive.

Urton described prices for materials as increasing two to four times their normal price. He also noted delays of six to eight months are reported for the automated electric and water meters. Some 1,755 Tantalus electric meters are in place but another 1,350 are to be replaced over the next two years. 80 percent of the new water meters are being read through the Tantalus system. The city continues to work on getting the remaining 5 to 600 water meters to read as crews troubleshoot the meters and pit locations.

The council also will consider re-hiring the Asplundh Tree Experts Company for professional tree trimming services at, or near, the power lines. Urton said the company is proposing a rate of $160 per hour for a two-man crew. He noted that’s six percent higher than last year. TMU budgets up to $25,000 for tree trimming. Distribution Supervisor Brad Griffin noted using an outside company allows local utility workers to focus on electrical system projects and related work.


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