Celilo station returns to service

Construction began in the fall of 2014, and the station had been out of service since October, 2015, for final installation and testing of the new equipment.

The modernization of the converter station — including six massive new transformers, each weighing more than a Boeing 747 airliner — anchors a $498 million package of BPA-funded grid upgrades to the northern leg of the PDCI.

The transformers were transported up the Columbia River by barge to the Port of The Dalles, then trucked them at night from the port to the station on Highway 197.

The converter station, owned by the BPA, transforms high volumes of electricity flowing through the northern end of the Pacific Direct Current Intertie, an 846-mile electron super-highway that is the longest commercial transmission line of its kind in the nation.

The intertie connects the Northwest with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at Sylmar, Calif.

BPA, which funded the improvements, is also in the process of upgrading the 265-mile portion of intertie that it owns from the Columbia River to the Nevada-Oregon border.

When the final phase of the overall project is completed this fall, the BPA transmission-line upgrades will raise the capacity of the intertie from 3,100 to 3,220 megawatts.

The upgrade provides energy, reliability and cost benefits to customers at either end, and the electricity that flows from north to south is virtually carbon-free, according to the BPA.

"These significant steps to improve the backbone of the regional grid will both strengthen reliability and increase our capacity to deliver energy, contributing to the vitality of the region,” said Richard Shaheen, BPA senior vice president of transmission services.

The Pacific Direct Current Intertie, a high-voltage direct current system (HVDC), was a marvel and a model when it was energized in 1970.

Direct-current systems can move large amounts of electricity over long distances more efficiently than alternating current lines of a similar length because less power is lost to the air as heat along the way.

That electrical feat, and the intricate technology that supports it, attracts utility representatives, government officials and business people from as far away as Africa and Asia to visit Celilo.

But after more than four decades of vigorous, dependable service, the vintage equipment at the converter station had far surpassed its operational life span and was due for a transformation of its own.

"The new equipment not only supports the western transmission grid with greater security, reliability, capacity and flexibility, but will be able to work harder," Shaheen added.

Keeping the previous equipment in safe operating condition required shutting down the intertie for several weeks of maintenance each year.

The next-generation equipment, much of it digital, needs far less routine upkeep, reducing outages and costs while improving performance for customers.

"The Pacific Direct Current Intertie has a great value for the entire West," said Mukhles Bhuiyan, manager of grid planning and development at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. "We appreciate BPA's leadership and investment in modernizing the northern anchor of our mutual resource."

To see a time-lapse video of the massive new transformers being shipped from the manufacturer in Sweden to the United States and up the Columbia River by barge to The Dalles, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ_f0BF0pvY.