The world's premier hydropower event keeps getting bigger and better as HydroVision International 2012 is pleased to announce the addition of 50 first-time exhibitors to this year's exhibition.

HydroVision International 2012, which runs from July 17-20 at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, covers more than 44,000 square feet of exhibit space and offers access to companies operating in every aspect of the hydroelectric industry.

This year's newest participants join more than 260 veteran exhibitors and hail from Canada, China, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

It is this global audience that many of HydroVision International's newest exhibitors say they are excited most about, and with a record 3,400 in attendance at last year's event, organizers are expecting to break that mark again this year.

Below are descriptions of some of these companies, the products and services they will exhibit, and why they chose to attend the event this year.

SeaView Systems

SeaView Systems Inc. in Dexter, Mich., was founded in 1998 to provide specialized services in the field of underwater technology. The company uses remotely operated vehicles and other underwater technology to perform investigations and measurement of underwater structures, including pipelines, tunnels, penstocks, draft tubes, dams and trashracks. SeaView systems also provides custom underwater tooling that, along with ROVs, is used to perform underwater construction and intervention tasks.

The company has performed investigations of tunnels up to 10,000 feet long and has the capability to inspect up to 30,000 feet of tunnel, says Geoff Cook, operations manager. One application of its expertise in the hydro industry was an underwater inspection of an 8,500-foot-long tunnel at the 25-MW Mamquam project on Skookum Creek in British Columbia, Canada.

SeaView Systems’ development of custom tooling involves quick turnaround solutions to unique and difficult problems, Cook says. For example, the company built a suite of tools for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to mount, with the assistance of an atmospheric diving suit, a 1-ton plate to a shaft wall at 400 feet water depth. The tooling suite included the design of a plate presentation assembly, robotic core drill, bolt insertion tool and precision bolt torquing tool, all with real-time surface control.

SeaView Systems says the decision to exhibit at HydroVision International was driven by the fact that overall attendance is international in nature and the organizations it wants to market its services to all seem to be attending.

Unit Electrical Engineering

Unit Electrical Engineering Ltd. in Okanagan Falls, British Columbia, Canada, is an electrical engineering and manufacturing company founded in 1990, with one of its specialty areas being hydro systems. In addition to packaging engineering services for electrical equipment, control system and balance of plant, Unit Electrical manufactures equipment as a complete package.

The company is active in the mining industry and uses its experience there to provide innovative solutions. For example, Unit Electric utilizes a lot of prefabrication for some of the equipment that serves to limit installation costs, says Rex Gould, a project coordinator specializing in the hydroelectric area of the company. This may be prefabricated intakes and power and control system buildings. Unit Electrical also packages all instrumentation and power equipment for rubber dam control systems or radial gate actuators into one building, he says.

Gould attended HydroVision International in 2011 for the first time. Seeing the extent of opportunities and the quality of the attendees led him to determine Unit Electrical needed to be more involved. The company is working on two hydro projects outside North America, one each in Dominican Republic and Greenland. It also is working on two in the U.S. in its role as subcontractor to turbine manufacturer Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon: Carter Lake in Colorado and a city of Sitka project in Alaska. The balance of the company’s work is in British Columbia.

Ametek Automation & Process Technologies

Ametek Automation & Process Technologies, headquartered in Clawson, Mich., provides industrial rotary and linear positioning type controls for industrial applications. Products the company plans to showcase at HydroVision include linear displacement transducers that can be used for governor control or control of intakes or sluice gates, as well as a variety of rotary products used within the hydroelectric industry.

The company works with original equipment manufacturers that supply controls to the hydroelectric industry, says Blake Cawley, sales manager for Ametek APT. Examples of companies to which they have supplied their products include Alstom, American Governor, Black & Veatch, Hatch, L&S Electric, Rodney Hunt, Siemens, Steel Fab, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Voith Hydro. Cawley says Ametek APT equipment is installed in dozens of hydro plants.

The company is exhibiting at Hydro-Vision for the first time after speaking with several of the OEMs for which it provides equipment and hearing about the quality of the event, Cawley says. Ametek APT is looking to expand its customer base at HydroVision.

Kaman