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Title: Substation flood protection: A case study

Conference ·
OSTI ID:697190
 [1];  [2]
  1. City of Naperville, IL (United States)
  2. Burns and McDonnell, Westmont, IL (United States)

On July 18, 1996, the City of Naperville, Illinois encountered a substantial storm event ranging from nine to fourteen inches of rainfall across town in less than twelve hours, with the majority falling over a four-hour period. The watershed containing the City`s Westside substation encountered the most significant rainfall totals, resulting in a flood crest in the substation area of approximately thirteen inches of water. The station is a 138 kV substation, and the flooding of this station caused a power loss to approximately 60% of the City`s customers for more than eight hours. The water level posed no threat to yard equipment, however, within the substation control building, flood water shorted out control circuits and damaged transmission line relay systems. Crews worked round-the-clock for most of a week to return all transmission lines and transformers to normal service. The 15 kV switchgear ultimately had to be replaced due to recurring control circuit problems. Once the station was restored and the cleanup efforts underway, the City embarked on an evaluation to determine what condition or conditions allowed the flooding to occur, and what could be done in the future to avoid this problem to ensure that the customers of Naperville would not experience another service outage of this magnitude due to flooding.

Research Organization:
Illinois Inst. of Tech., Chicago, IL (United States)
OSTI ID:
697190
Report Number(s):
CONF-990410-PROC.-Vol.2; TRN: IM9946%%576
Resource Relation:
Conference: 61. American power conference annual meeting, Chicago, IL (United States), 6-8 Apr 1999; Other Information: PBD: 1999; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the American power conference: Volume 61-2; McBride, A.E. [ed.]; PB: 485 p.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English