The first package of batteries is unloaded at West Point Treatment Plant.
West Point Treatment Plant has been busy lately receiving truckloads of special deliveries. The packages arriving are six-foot tall and so heavy they must be fork-lifted into place.
Inside are giant battery cabinets, 56 of them in total, each holding 36 batteries. Doing the math that’s 2,016 batteries with a combined maximum power output level of 10 megawatts! Once installed and wired into the treatment plant’s pump motors, the batteries will fix a problem that has plagued the plant for decades.
End of the line
West Point’s location at the far tip of Discovery Park is an ideal spot to discharge cleaned water into Puget Sound, but also means it’s the last customer to draw power from the local utility lines. Split-second voltage sags (think of flickering lights) can trip the plant’s large electric pumps, which are moving 190 million gallons of wastewater per day. “The pumps are essential – they are the heartbeat of our system at West Point,” says Tom Bauer, West Point’s plant manager. “We are excited to see these batteries installed because they will help provide a more reliable, consistent power supply needed to keep our treatment process operating smoothly.”
The West Point Power Quality Improvement Project came to be after County Executive Dow Constantine signed an emergency declaration in 2021 to protect West Point from power disruptions. Large storms, expected to worsen under climate change, further stress West Point as reliable power is needed more than ever to pump through the voluminous flow.
Lightning speed
The resulting capital project has gone up at lightning speed (relatively speaking) for a construction project. The foundation for the battery building was poured in February and over the course of the summer the building took shape. Now, the batteries have arrived.
Groups of fourteen cabinets arrived over a two-week period with each cabinet inspected multiple times before entering the facility and then assigned a permanent spot on the floor. Crews are expected to complete construction on the project in the summer 2024, at which time West Point will flip the switch on the battery power to start feeding the plant’s seven hungry pumps a steady diet of reliable power.