I hope that the plant did not contribute a good bit of the total proportion of power needed by our Texas grid? If so, the load is about to increase next month to the point that might trip the rest of the plants or push them to need to do brown outs.

We may see some black outs this season here in Houston? They will have to place some parts of the load on temporary off status during peak load times of the day. if this plant held up more than several hundred megawatts, we are going to have some real fun this season.

 

Any info on size and type of plant? (Gas, coal, bio, other)

As a power plant operator myself; more than likely it will not restart as all of the plant wiring for equipment power and instrumentation communications are all underground. If the vaults (large concrete junction boxes)filled with water to the conduit lines, those will fill with sand/mud/water. No new cable pulls can be performed, light duty (comms, fiber optic) will break down almost instantly and start generating errors which will have adverse production reliability numbers (where the money comes from). Believe it or not fires can be less damaging than flooding to a power plant.

 

With warning they couldn't put up berms?

The wires and cables are not waterproof? I vaguely remember putting in vaults where you had to time the tides coming in so you could work in them.

 

They said 4 foot deep, ..... I envisioned slow moving murky water.
Yes wires are waterproof, as much as your non-dive watch is... throw that in a mud puddle for a week or two. Even above ground junction boxes usually 2-4 feet off the ground are not sealed against flooding water, just rain, and that is where connections between instruments and process controls are done. IO buildings (intermediate processing control) are usually at ground level not sealed so they would fill with mud as well. Imagine rows and racks and several buildings of this, it cant be cleaned and survive.

Just heavy rains here (very little standing water) and you see a spike in comms error counts. As long as there is power the trays and vaults have low capacity pumps that keep them dewatered. Usually at best there is a manhole cover, other places just 2x10 wood cut to fit the vaults which can be 4foot wide by 100feet long and 8-10 feet deep. These will have hundreds of cable runs that will back fill with mud and become plugged.

To see a power plant built you would not believe the logistics that is underground.

Will add more later am heading to the plant now....

 

I would rather not give too must identifying information as I like my job. I am not sure what I can say and not be over the line.

They did attempt to use sand bags, about $150K worth if I heard correctly. Unfortunately, they tried to save the entire plant instead of cutting their losses. The sand bags were stacked in a single row so the water went right through the space between the bags. If they had stacked them in 2 rows, with the joints staggered, maybe around half of the plant and the Control Room, it might have worked better.

The plant is capable of generating about 1600 megawatts, enough to power about 1,600,000 homes. I am not sure where their power goes.

We are not talking about clean water here. There is a fine layer of silt on everything. This is a rural area with septic tanks, so who knows what else was in the water. That silt is also potentially inside components, which is why my Company has taken the stand that everything must be replaced.

The drive in was very sad. People emptying their homes to the curb. Kind of eye opening, even if they would have had a stock pile, it would be ruined unless it was on high shelves.

 

Everything with oil in it will need to be replaced if water got above the secondary containment structures. Transformers are filled with oil and have vacuum/pressure reliefs some with low vents, all of them are going to need tested(for moisture) before you can even bring in BOP power, expect to be black until then.

Every piece of equipment will need meggered, if it fails this is going to be the issue with silted conduit lines. You will have to flush them before you can do a wire pull. Even in the dry climate here they will fill with dirt, mice, snakes that can stop a pull. Nothing quite as scary as starting a cable pull and having a snake decide to leave the conduit you are in front of.

Well your engineers are going to be earning their money for the next few years if they try to bring it back, good luck and sharpen your resume just in case.

 

Of the many problems with record breaking flooding is not only basic infrastructure like power houses, septic/sewer, but cemeteries. Imagine what it's like having coffins floating down mainstreet. THEN... how do you identify the remains if several pop up to the surface?

 

The newer say last 30 to 35 years, have a little capsule that screws in the side to ID who is in it.

 

T-Rex,
You're smart to be limited in the info you provide. In our business there are specific restrictions on what can be shared. FERC 888 and 889 comes to mind.
Sorry to hear about the headaches caused by the floods. That's going to make work a real pain in the butt. It might make economic sense to write the entire plant off. Still, it's a 1600mw generator facility. That's a lot of MW's to lose, especially as noted before heading into summer peak load season.
Hopefully the renewable plants can help offset that generation loss. I understand that Texas has a huge infrastructure under development.
Share what you can if you are inclined, I'm certainly interested.
Best of luck to you and your co-workers. Stay safe!

 

1600MW?!?! WOW!

We will be doing black outs in July here in the Southeast East Texas area.