The U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation has awarded an $18,843,500 contract to Andritz Hydro Corporation to replace and refurbish components of three electric generators at its 50-MW Canyon Ferry power plant.
The work will be done in $2 million to $4 million increments over a three-year period starting in July 2022.
“Since its inception, the powerplant at Canyon Ferry has sustainably generated clean energy,” said Montana Area Manager Ryan Newman. “This necessary rehab work will ensure these critical pieces of infrastructure continue operating safely and efficiently, generating millions more watt-hours of electricity well into the future.”
The new and refurbished equipment will allow for the safe, reliable, and continued operation of the generating units that produce hydropower, Reclamation said.
Construction of the Canyon Ferry power plant on the Missouri River in Montana started in 1949 and was completed in 1954. Unit 1 began operation in December 1953 and Units 2 and 3 in March 1954. Three 13.5-foot-diameter penstocks, embedded in the dam, supply water to three 23,500-hp, vertical-shaft, Francis-type hydraulic turbines each driving a 16,667-kW generator.
Canyon Ferry is a multi-purpose project, which provides low-cost power generation and makes an important contribution to the flood control, irrigation, and power supply in the upper Missouri Basin.
According to Reclamation’s website, major activities planned in the near future include replacement of the unit circuit breakers, power plant protective relaying, station battery system, power plant sump pumps, generator bearing cooling water piping and power plant data logger and repairs to the power penstocks coating and spillway stilling basin.
Reclamation is the second largest producer of hydropower in the U.S. and operates 53 hydroelectric power plants that annually produced, on average, 40 billion kWh for the past 10 years.
