WEBVTT

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[Music]

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Narrator: Have you ever thought about what
it would be like to lose power...

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not for a couple hours but for several
months? How would you survive?

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Where would you get your daily water
or food? How would you communicate?

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So many aspects of our daily lives
depend on electricity. It affects our economy,

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and national security. The electric grid is
one of the critical infrastructures

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identified by Homeland Security
Presidential Directive 7.

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Sarah Mahmood: It's tied to our national
economy. About 60% of our GDP

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is directly tied to electric power. And so
a long sustained outage affects

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our national economy as well as,
of course national security.

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Narrator: The 2003 Blackout...most power
restored in 48 hours,

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estimated 10 billion in economic losses.
Annual power outages...

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economic loesses, 100 billion.
Several other critical infrastructures,

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such as transportation, communications
and water, have direct ties to the electric grid,

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and depend on the grid in order to provide
their services. A long term power outage

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has the potential to be catastrophic. Such an
outage can be caused by manmade physical

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attacks, cyber attacks, or natural disasters,
such as solar storms.

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The transmission grid in the United States
is currently the largest in the word

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with over 80 thousand miles of
extra high voltage transmission lines.

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The transmission grid is a long haul delivery
system used to transport

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power from the generation stations, to
the distribution network.

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EHV transformers are critical
components of the transmission grid.

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Transforming voltage from one level
to another, for transport along

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the transmission grid. Without them
the grid can't function. These transformers

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are subject to a number of vulnerabilities.
They are extremely large, making

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transportation a challange; they have long
lead times, and other procurement challanges,

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sometimes with a 12 to 24 month
delay; and they can take several weeks, or even months

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to transport and install. The recovery
transformer is a solution that

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is prover to reduce recovery time
by more than 75 percent, from several months,

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percent, from several months, to less than one week.

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Rich Lordan: Transformer is designed to
meet industry standards.

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We designed this based on traditional
transformer technology,

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so this transformer the Recovery Transformer
is gonna last 30 yeas and is gonna

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provide reliable service. The key
to it is the modularity, is the taking a

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three-phase transformer, turning into three
single-phase transformer transformers

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and then taking all of the components off
of that transformer and making it

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it modular; that's how we
get the weight down.

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Craig Stiegemeier: From the ground
up, it's designed to be highly

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transportable AND fast to install.
Each box behind me does 200

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MVA, thats 200 million watts. That's
roughly about one-fifth or one-six

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the size of a nuclear reactor, a big
nuclear power plant.

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Narrator: To prove the Recovery
Transformer concept, the team conducted a pilot

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demonstration that included the
transportation, installation, assembly,

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commissioning, and energization of
the transformer in less than one week.

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The exercise of begins with the
ancillary equipment such as the turrets, bushings

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and control cabinets, floated
onto the flatbed trailers beginning the journey to

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the site right away. This allows the utility crew
on the receiving end to

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pre-position and test equipment
before the transformers arrive.

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In the meantime, the transformers,
which are stored full of oil,

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are drained. The COPS tanks are removed
and secured to a trailer containing the

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cooling equipment. And the transformers
are secured to lowboy trailers.

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The transformers drive on the route
provided by the state permitting agencies

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with their escorts. At the substation,
the ancillary equipment has

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already arrived, been tested and
pre-positioned by the utility crew.

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Once the transformers arrive, the
first two units are positions by a crane.

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The team also tested a unique design
for easy transport on the third unit,

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known as the MA-65. This allows the
transformer to be transported on a sled,

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which the trailer can attach to either side
of, for transport and detach after positioning

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in the correct location. The sled also acts
as a foundation for the transformer.

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Jack Heintschel: We set two of the units
using a 200-ton crane. the units by the way,

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weigh about 125 thousand pounds
apiece. We used a crane

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to set two of the units, but the third
unit, we used a specially

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designed trailer that resembles-for those
of you who are familiar with

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a Schnabel car, rail car, it resembles
a Schnabel car but used over the road as

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opposed to over the rail.

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Narrator: Once the transformers are
positioned, crews begin the assembly process

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which includes connecting bushings
control cabinets, lightning arrestors,

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and more. The oil service takes once
key elements of the transformer

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have been assembled.

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KC Jones: Processing on THESE units
have been condensed somewhat,

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because of the nature of the units,
compared to a traditional

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auto, we're able to oil-service these
units and basically, a little under a day,

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say, two days, just rounding it off
with our set time, where a traditional auto

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transformer can take as much as
three weeks to oil service.

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Narrator: Crew then conducts final
testing of the equipment, controls,

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and protection systems, before energizing
the units before by closing the switches.

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The end result is the beautiful hum
we hear when the units come online and

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begin carrying loads to customers.
The exercise was completed in six days,

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a record time for installing such a
transformer. The Recovery Transformer

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has the potential to significantly minimize
the effects of long-term outage on our

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grid, strengthening America's
security and resiliency.