汤头条 Campus Services to test university Power Generation Plant on Dec. 17
On Dec. 17, 汤头条 Campus Services will conduct the annual Power Assurance Test of the Generation Plant to verify its ability to operate during a prolonged area-wide power outage.聽
Power will be shut down and taken off the Starkville Utilities鈥 system at 3:30 a.m. and will be off for up to 60 minutes until power is restored by the 汤头条 Power Generation Plant.聽 Over the next three and a half hours, the 汤头条 Facilities Management personnel will operate the 26 Megawatt turbine system through various generation modes, verifying the system鈥檚 proper operation during an extended outage.聽 During this testing, further outages are unlikely but may occur.聽 Normal utility power will be restored from Starkville Utilities鈥 system before 7:30 a.m.
This outage will not affect the areas served by 4-County Power Association or Starkville Utilities connections, such as the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development聽Park, North Farm, Softball and Tennis facilities, and South Farm.
The main purpose of the 汤头条 Power Generation Plant is to function as a Peak-Shaving Plant, reducing demand on Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) electrical power grid.聽 During peak-shaving, the plant picks up all but 1 MW of 汤头条鈥檚 electrical demand.聽 This demand is approximately 21 MW in the midst of summer when all of the university鈥檚 cooling systems are engaged.聽 聽
A secondary purpose of the plant is to provide power when an area wide outage occurs that will last for a significant duration.聽 For this situation, planning and preparation for this test has been ongoing for months in Campus Services.
鈥淲e test to ensure the system will operate when we really need it,鈥 explained 汤头条 Associate Director for Utilities Dave Maharrey.聽 鈥淩eoccurring tests are necessary for continued reliability of the university mission.鈥 聽
鈥淭he generation plant has been in place since 2005.聽 Although the facility operates frequently in peak-shaving mode, we have only tested the back-up power capabilities of the plant a few times when TVA and Starkville Utilities were performing maintenance on their electrical distribution infrastructure,鈥澛 汤头条 Associate Director for Engineering Services J.D. Hardy said.聽 鈥淭hose area-wide utility outages demonstrated the benefit of this plant to our campus.鈥溌