Swift River Hydro Operations Company, Inc.

Project Operations and Maintenance

The four principals of Swift River Hydro Operations Company have operated and maintained their own hydro generating equipment.  It takes years to build up the engineering design experience, knowledge and skills within a hydro operating team.  For this reason, SRC and D. Hobbs Contracting formed Swift River Hydro Operations Company (SRHOCO) to operate, maintain, rehab and manage SRC's portfolio of hydro projects and to contract with owners of other hydro plants to operate and/or repair their hydro equipment.

Hobbs Contracting repairing stator wedges

Key Benefits

• Regular preventive maintenance by the operating crews
• Design and installation of automatic protection, shutdown and start-up equipment
• Immediate response to emergencies
• Hydro engineering, construction and O&M capabilities in one company
• Specialized tools and machine shop for immediate repair of hydro equipment
• On site library of design drawings and repair manuals for older equipment
• Quality work at reasonable prices

Capabilities

SRHOCO can research and repair older equipment often found in New England's mills because Bill Fay has collected original design drawings from all major US manufacturers for turbines, generators, intake gates and control equipment.  In addition, he has been inspecting dams in New England and New York State and therefore has extensive knowledge of the construction and appropriate repairs for timber crib, ashlar and concrete gravity dams.  Hobbs Contracting has had to take apart abandoned turbines, cutting out wicket gate pins and freeing up the gate case in order to replace equipment with original designs and materials.  When necessary D Hobbs Contracting (DHC - a subsidiary of SRHOCO) can caste new runner blades and or re-assemble turbines that can be returned to service or replace broken turbines with new efficient stainless steel runners.  DHC has years of experience rebuilding civil structures like intake works, penstock linings, pressure case relining and repair, draft tube replacement and dredging of tailraces and forebays.

Design and Repair Old Structures and Equipment

 

SRHOCO removed rotten timbers from the intake works at Woronoco Hydro, rebuilding the trash rack support structures with large steel beams and replacing several sections of trashracks with new steel bars.

Description of capability 1

 

Rehabilitate to Increase Efficiency

SRHOCO rebuilt the governor at Woronoco Hydro when it found the wicket gates of the No. 3 turbine could not be closed fully. Years of neglect had permitted the setting to slip and the degree of control to be reduced significantly. SRHOCO dismantled the governor and fitted new hydraulic lines into the pedestal which overcame two restrictions in the lines that had plagued remote operations for years.

 

Description of capability 2

 

Civil Construction Rehabilitation

Woronoco's intake gate at the mouth of the penstock was a horizontal timber slide gate built in 1915.  It had deteriorated over the years such that the rack and pinion gears were no longer operational.   Finding the remnants of a stop-log slot in the granite stone section at the south end of the dam, SRHOCO designed and built a stoplog gate structure that easily controls the flow through the forebay and can be used to dewater the forebay without having to draw the headpond down as had been IPC's practice for the last 85 years.

 

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