ATLANTA, GEORGIA (October 23, 2003) -- Portable diesel generators and transformers provided by GE Energy Rentals recently supplied more than 31 megawatts of emergency power to We Energies' utility customers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
When a dam break released more than eight billion gallons of impounded water into the Dead River, there was extensive residential and commercial flooding. High water levels forced the shutdown of the Presque Isle Power Plant in Marquette, Mich. That plant represents approximately 50 percent of the generation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. As transmission into the Upper Peninsula is constrained, the area was critically short of capacity and energy.
Under its contract, GE Energy Rentals provided 27 1,350-kw diesel generators, 17 step-up transformers and approximately 37,000 feet of cable for the flooded area. The GE rental equipment was divided between two substations in the Iron Mountain, Mich. area to help maintain voltage support for the weakened power grid. The two sites were up and running within one week of the outage at the Presque Isle Power Plant. We Energies used GE Energy Rentals equipment until the power plant was back on line in a few weeks.
GE Industrial Systems (GEIS) worked with GE Energy Rentals to return the power plant to full capacity. During the flood, waters reached levels of four to five feet inside the plant, partially submerging power generation units. The GE team determined that five exciters needed replacement with new EX2000s, four existing EX2000s could be repaired and three Kramerstat drives needed replacement with new wound rotor motor controllers. To get Presque Isle back in full power generation mode, GEIS employees began working around the clock.
"Our GE team moved quickly and purposefully to turn the severe damage at the Presque Isle plant into a workable situation," said Mark Sydow, general manager of GE Industrial Systems Global Projects. "Employees at multiple levels of the organization, on many different teams at GEIS and at GEPS, committed the time and energy to get the power plant up and running in truly record time."
"The We Energies project demonstrates our ability to deliver and set up equipment in a short timeframe and positions GE Energy Rentals as a leader in emergency response," said Luis Ramirez, president of GE Energy Rentals.
We Energies (www.we-energies.com), the principal utility business of Wisconsin Energy Corp., serves more than one million electric customers and more than 970,000 natural gas customers throughout Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We Energies also serves about 2,500 water customers in Milwaukee's northern suburbs and about 500 steam customers in downtown Milwaukee.
GE Energy Rentals, based in Atlanta, Georgia, was formed by GE Power Systems to offer rental equipment for temporary distributed power and climate control applications in the commercial, industrial, utility, oil and gas and special events industries.
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