It's not often that a municipality pays for something that it hopes never to use. But Robert McGarrah and officials with the City of Tallahassee, FL, found themselves in that exact position last June.

McGarrah is thrilled that he never had to pull the switch on the temporary power plant city officials rented for four months last summer. And though the plant, which operated from June through September, ran only for brief periods of testing, McGarrah considers the cost to rent it from Jacksonville, FL–based Alstom Power Rentals (APR) money well spent.

"It is one of those things you hope you'll never need to use," says McGarrah, manager of power production for the City of Tallahassee. "We asked for the temporary power plant to cover a contingency, to cover us in case of a power emergency this summer. The hope, then, was that the plant never actually had to run."

Tallahassee is just one of many municipalities whose officials have turned to temporary power to help them through an energy emergency. APR, for example, has been busier than ever supplying temporary power plants—ones that workers with the company can set up in days, and take down just as quickly—to help municipalities cover unforeseen outages, equipment malfunctions, or maintenance projects. The company has supplied temporary power in such far-flung locales as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mexico, and Haiti.

The power-rental industry, in fact, is steadily recovering from the country's sluggish economy. A 2003 report by Frost & Sullivan—North American Power Generation Rentals Markets—says that the North American power-rental industry notched $405.9 million in revenue in 2002. The same report predicts that the industry could reach $706.3 million in revenue in 2008.

This is hardly a surprise. The rental industry gives utilities reliable backup power without forcing these same utilities to spend large amounts of money building their own backup equipment. Temporary power plants, then, are an effective solution for municipal officials looking for protection during potential power emergencies.

And that is exactly the situation in which McGarrah and his fellow Tallahassee officials found themselves last summer.

The Problem

Officials in Tallahassee first realized that they might need temporary power last February, when a powerful steam turbine in the city's power grid failed. This was an emergency, but it wasn't a disaster. The city, even with the failed turbine, still had enough energy for its power needs. And because officials expected repairs on the turbine to be completed before June—before the increased summer energy demand that begins that month—they worried little about any potential problems.

But repair work moved slowly. And the city hit June without the services of the failed turbine.

"We could meet our system loads with all the other resources we had as long as everything was running the way it was supposed to be running," McGarrah says. "But had we lost our other large unit or our interconnections to the two utilities we are connected to, we would then have had trouble meeting our load. That's what drove us to look at our alternatives."

The Rental Alternative

The city turned to APR for a temporary power plant that could provide Tallahassee with 50 megawatts of backup power. And city officials wanted the plant up and running quickly, before the start of the summer peak period, which meant that APR workers had to finish construction in 30 days.

Fortunately, the company specializes in quick turnaround. The Tallahassee project was no exception. The contract was signed on April 27, 2004. Construction began at the start of May. And the temporary plant began operating June 1.

According to company officials, the 30-day construction period presented little challenge.

"We put in the majority of our projects in 30 days," says Paul Marcroft, business development manager for APR. "That's the nature of our business. We're not just about providing temporary power. We're about putting in temporary power plants quickly. We are called in for emergency situations."

The company can install its temporary plants so quickly because they are largely standardized. This allows workers to quickly assemble them no matter if they are installing them in California or Sri Lanka.

The plants are also designed in a way so that workers usually have to do little to the land on which they will sit. For instance, in the Tallahassee project, APR workers simply located their temporary power station on a bare patch of earth after having first poured gravel over it and compacted it.

APR workers also frequently reuse parts that have been used in other temporary power plants. In the Tallahassee project, workers used portions of a 100-megawatt temporary power plant—circuit breakers, switchgears, and cabling—that they had installed last year for a six-month backup project in Vera Cruz, Mexico.

"That is another reason we are able to execute our jobs so quickly," Marcroft says. "Some of the equipment that goes into these plants are not off-the-shelf items. Some of them have long lead times. It takes a long time for them to get to you if you have to order them for every project. It can be a struggle to get some of these items. The fact that we had a pre-engineered, pre-designed 100-megawatt mirror-image project helped us immensely."

The Tallahassee project consisted of 12 transportable gas-turbine generating sets and a 69-kilovolt step-up transformer. Each of the mobile generating systems consisted of one trailer for the generating set and another holding each set's control room. Most interestingly, Internet technology was used to remotely monitor the performance of this equipment. Workers used the data from this to make sure they were ready should the plant need emergency maintenance.

"Our specialty is doing things quickly. That is true. We installed this plant in 30 days. Everything was done quickly. But we also do things very carefully," Marcroft says. "This is a local government utility. We dealt with the City of Tallahassee, too. We were obviously working under a stringent process. We had to meet certain requirements. We got through all of that. Ultimately, we executed the project on time. The city was pleased with the way we integrated within their infrastructure."

APR also took care to design the station so that, if Tallahassee officials decided to add an additional 50 megawatts of power to it, as was their option, they could do so easily and without compromising the availability of the original 50 megawatts.

APR designed the station to allow for its quick removal once the four-month contract ended. "Because of the way our plants are set up, we can very quickly go in there and remove them," Marcroft says. "Once we're gone, all that's left is an empty piece of ground. It's like we were never there in the first place. What we did was work on a large area of land adjacent to the existing facility. We put gravel down and compacted it. What they are then left with once we are gone is a bare patch of land with some gravel on it. They can use it in the future. We pull out the high-voltage system. We pull out everything we brought to the site and take it away. There are no permanent foundations."

Fast-Track Permitting

Tallahassee officials had to move fast as well. After all, the city had to secure all the proper permits before McGarrah could pull the switch on the temporary plant.

Tallahassee needed to obtain construction and operating permits from both the state and Leon County. And though this was the first time McGarrah had dealt with renting temporary power, the experience went smoothly.

The first step McGarrah took? He went to the county and state regulatory agencies—the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Leon County—to explain to their officials that the city was planning on renting temporary power to avert any potential problems during the summer months. McGarrah and the city approached the agencies even before they knew they were going to work with APR.

"I thought it was important to give everyone involved a heads-up about what we were going to do. We needed to act quickly so that we would enter the summer with the proper amount of backup power," McGarrah says. "The agencies worked extremely well with us to process the permits in the shortest amount of time possible. Fortunately, we already had a good reputation with the state on an environmental basis. That certainly helped move things along."

McGarrah estimates that it took the city little more than a month to acquire the necessary permits for the building and operation of the temporary plant. First, the city obtained—within about a week's time—the construction permit that allowed workers to begin building the plant. Obtaining the operating permits took longer. But the city got those on May 27, less than a week before turning the plant on.

Did the city take a risk by authorizing construction before it had even gained its operating permits? Both McGarrah and Marcroft say that the actual risk the city took on was extremely small.

"The city [officials] had done enough internal lobbying that they knew the final approval was mostly a formality," Marcroft says. "They had already done everything the regulatory agencies had asked of them."

APR took no real risk, either. The company's contract with the city contained an out clause stipulating that APR would be paid even if Tallahassee failed to obtain its operating permits.

"That was necessary," Marcroft says. "We were spending a lot of money on installing equipment, procuring equipment."

Because the city gained its operating permit a week before June 1, APR officials had enough time to test the temporary power plant. It easily passed its eight-hour performance test, Marcroft says.

Now that his first experience with temporary power is over, McGarrah says he wouldn't hesitate to turn to it again.

"We've been very pleased with our relationship with Alstom," McGarrah says. "They made every commitment they gave to us. They made all their dates. I'm very pleased with our relationship with them and how easy the process went on the units the company installed."

Other Projects

While the rental power business continues to grow, it has been especially good for APR. Not only has the Jacksonville company provided temporary power plants across the United States, it has also taken on some intriguing projects in other parts of the world.

In May 2002, for instance, APR built a 20-megawatt temporary power station in Chunnakam, Sri Lanka. The 15-month project's goal was to provide power to the country's Jaffna area, which, until recently, had suffered through 20 years of civil war.

The rental company provided 18 1.5-megawatt diesel generators, 10,000 feet of cable, switchgear, and other electrical equipment to the country, shipping it from the United States to the port of Colombo. That process alone took 30 days. Still, APR managed to install the power station—from the time it signed its contract—in 60 days.

This was no small accomplishment. The station's site was in thick jungle with dense undergrowth that had to be cleared and then graded to make sure the ground would drain properly. This was especially important during the rainy season.

Next, construction workers laid the foundations for the diesel generators. Manual labor, without the help of machinery, dug the trenches for the station's fuel piping and cabling. To secure the area, workers built a 10-foot-high fence with floodlights along the project's perimeter. Not only did this allow for security, the lighting allowed workers to work around-the-clock shifts.

Another interesting project took APR to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where the company delivered 34 megawatts of power in July 2003. The Haitian government was looking for a source of energy, to be delivered quickly, to support the growing demand for power in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Government officials called on the company to provide a 24-month temporary power station to act as a "power bridge" while the government created a more permanent power plant for the city. APR provided 21 diesel power modules to the city, all of them coupled with step-up transformers.

As in Tallahassee, installation and commissioning took just 30 days, which meant that power was online on time in early September. APR provided all power distribution for the project, including cabling and connection to the Haitian utility's 69-kilovolt substation.

Company officials don't expect the market for rental power to slow any time soon. And they also don't expect their travels across the world to slow, either.

"This market is strong year after year," Marcroft says. "It is global. It is everywhere. We track very closely, for instance, hydro-dependant countries, countries that are extremely dependant on rain. In places like Sri Lanka and Venezuela, the cities are very dependant on hydropower. If they get a dry year, they are left with low reservoirs. They only have a certain amount of megawatts available to them. During the summer months and peak periods of energy use they have to install temporary power. That's when we are called in."

Chesterton, IN–based Dan Rafter is a technical writer specializing in energy-related topics.

DE - November/December 2004