Some passing clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph..

Some passing clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 74F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph.

Members of the Hastings Utility Board recommended on Thursday purchasing a substation transformer to replace a damaged one at the Don Henry Substation.

Members of the Hastings Utility Board recommended on Thursday purchasing a substation transformer to replace a damaged one at the Don Henry Substation.

When the Hastings City Council meets Monday, members will act on a recommendation to purchase a $252,000 substation transformer to replace one that was damaged in January.

Members of the Hastings Utility Board voted 5-0 during their regular meeting Thursday to recommend approval of the purchase of the 120,000-pound, three-phase transformer from Maddox Industrial Transformer of South Carolina, as well as approval of a $370,000 bid to repair the damaged transformer.

On Monday, the council will just be acting on the purchase of the new transformer. The city is waiting to see if there are other bids for repair.

The repair will be included in the next fiscal year budget.

Noel Nienhueser, superintendent of substations, communications and support at Hastings Utilities, reported on the situation.

The transformer at the Don Henry Substation, 110 N. Marian Road, went out of service on Jan. 22.

Following an hour-long outage, affected HU customers were tied into a different feeder transformer, from which they still receive service.

Nienhueser said the gas inside the transformer causes the oil inside to pressurize very quickly.

The oil inside a transformer is supposed to look similar to light beer.

“When the guys pulled the oil sample it looked like coffee,” he said. “That’s bad.”

Testing of the oil showed about 1,153 parts per million of dangerous gases in the transformer oil.

The routine test that was taken on that unit in September had zero PPM.

“What that means was that there was a large arc of above 700 centigrade inside the transformer,” he said. “An arc causes the oil to burn; when it burns it creates gases. The gases create a bubble, and that pressure switch that tripped the transformer offline is what keeps the transformer from exploding for all practical purposes.”

Hastings Utilities did a number of tests and learned the A coil is severely damaged and has failed.

The transformer has three coils that are attached, like three cones stacked inside of one another.

The transformer was built in 1971 and put into service at that time.

It runs off the jet turbine at Don Henry. It was the primary transformer in the 1970s when the jet turbine was used 24 hours a day.

It was the transformer that converted the jet engine output to be used within the HU network.

Another large transformer at Don Henry now is handling the additional load.

“This is our low season because of the temperatures outside,” Nienhueser said. “We have no air conditioning load. This is a perfect time for low load.”

During the summer, the demand will more than double current levels, which that transformer can’t handle.

“We are down one level of redundancy,” he said.

He found a new transformer in South Carolina for $252,000. That transformer was built in 2012 but never was put into service.

“In today’s world that is a bargain, in my opinion,” he said.

He received a quote and a “no quote” for repair of the existing transformer.

The quote was for $370,000 from a company in South Dakota that Hastings Utilities has used in the past.

The company that gave a “no quote” for repair is from Kansas, but did give a quote of $600,000 for a replacement transformer.

Nienhueser said the timeline he was told calls for the repaired transformer to be returned in December 2022 or January 2023.

“We need to do something to go through the summer load,” he said.

Nienhueser said once the council approves the purchase of the new transformer, it should take four days to transport to Hastings, followed by a three-week installation.

Based on the information provided from the seller, the 2012 transformer appears to have been stored correctly and performed well in its most recent diagnostic tests, in 2020.

It comes with a three-year warranty from date of purchase.

Nienhueser said this size of transformer isn’t common in today’s world.

“If they had two of them sitting there I would probably be asking you to buy both of them,” he said.

Also during the meeting, Utility Manager Kevin Johnson gave an update on supply chain issues.

Nienhueser’s department received a truck last week that was part of the 2020 budget.

“There continues to be supply chain issues with almost everything we touch material-wise,” Johnson said.

The transformer is a reminder of this.

Also during the meeting, Brandan Lubken, HU superintendent of water and wastewater operations, spoke about a partnership between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Hastings Utilities’ Pollution Control and Facility as part of a statewide initiative.

Hastings will be sending influent water samples to UNL twice a week to analyze for copies of COVID RNA.

Utility Board members unanimously approved tabling further action until getting more budget information on the addition of two full-time employees to serve as a boring crew to replace old water mains in Hastings.

Jake Frerichs, information technology manager for Hastings Utilities, said Hastings Utilities is about 40% through implementation of GPS hardware into HU vehicles, starting with administration vehicles first.

The primary interest is to know location of assets in case of an emergency and scheduling work.

Keith Leonhardt, HU director of capital management, gave an update on the integrated resource plan and coal combustion residual rule. The CCR rule prohibits the sluicing of ash into an unlined pond after October 2023. Implementation of the rule looks to be delayed.

Derek Zeisler, HU director of administration, gave an update on the wind turbine contract negotiations with Bluestem Energy Solutions and Central Community College-Hastings.

During upcoming meetings, the Hastings Utility Board as well as Hastings City Council will look at the addition of a new energy supply positio…

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