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NYPA awards contract to replace Niagara Power Project gantry crane

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NYPA awards contract to replace Niagara Power Project gantry crane
(photo courtesy New York Power Authority)

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) Board of Trustees approved the award of a contract, valued up to $37,984,000, to REEL COH Inc. of Boisbriand, Canada, to fabricate, deliver and install a new gantry crane with a lifting capacity of 680 tons for the 2,675 MW Niagara Power Project.

The new crane is a critical tool that will help enable the power project’s 15-year modernization and digitization program, titled Next Generation Niagara (NGN).

“The Niagara Power Project’s overhead gantry crane is the workhorse that makes possible all the of the plant’s mechanical upgrades, especially those related to our $1.1 billion multi-year Next Generation Niagara effort to modernize and extend the life of New York’s flagship clean energy plant,” said NYPA Interim President and Chief Executive Officer Justin E. Driscoll. “Many of the efforts to digitize the project are already under way, but a new crane is essential for planned major mechanical upgrades.”

Launched in 2019, NGN will extend the operating life of the Niagara Power Project, the largest source of clean electricity in New York State. NGN is focusing primarily on the 13 power generating units that make up the project’s 2,525 MW Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant.

Standing 70 feet high and 60 feet wide, the project’s overhead crane rolls along rail tracks at the project’s main generating facility, lifting rotors and other major components for maintenance and repairs. It is original to the plant and nearing the end of its useful life. The new crane will be rated to carry loads 50 tons greater than its predecessor.

The NGN program improvements include replacing aging equipment with the latest machinery that reflects advanced digital technologies for optimizing the hydroelectric project’s performance. In addition to the crane replacement, which enables disassembly and reassembly of the generating units, NGN encompasses three other projects:

Design and implementation of an inspection platform to conduct comprehensive inspections of the Robert Moses Plant’s penstocks, which are 485 feet long and 26 feet in diameter and run along the face of the project

Upgrading and digitizing control systems and building a new back-up control room

Overhaul and/or replacement of mechanical components that have reached the end of their operating life

The scope of work under this contract includes the design, fabrication, delivery and installation of the new crane with a lift capacity of 680 tons, as well as a 15-ton monorail hoist, a five-ton maintenance hoist, bird deterrent systems and closed-circuit television systems. Construction of the new crane is expected be complete by 2026.

The first turbine outage to update the plant’s mechanical components is scheduled to begin in April 2023.

After the collapse of Niagara Mohawk’s Schoellkopf Power Station in 1956, the Federal Power Commission issued a license in 1957 to NYPA to redevelop Niagara Falls’ hydroelectric power. The Niagara Power Project produced its first power in 1961, and NYPA obtained a new 50-year federal operating license in 2007.

NYPA operates 16 generating facilities and more than 1,400 circuit-miles of transmission lines. More than 80% of the electricity NYPA produces is clean renewable hydropower.