Bay Park Phase E4

Electrical Utility Connections

Bay Park was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which led to a significant effort to improve resiliency and storm hardening during the replacement of power distribution equipment, funded through the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Hazard Mitigation Program.

Nassau County Department of Public Works (NCDPW) selected H2M as Final Design Engineer to design electrical equipment and related infrastructure to accommodate new utility electrical feeders at the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant (STP).

The Bay Park STP is a 70 million-gallon-per-day (MGD) facility. The site previously contained on-site power generation via four 3,600kW engine generators that were decommissioned upon the installation of the new utility electrical feeders. Peak electrical load is currently approximately 6,000kW and is expected to increase due to planned future process equipment additions.

The designed solution was the installation of two new redundant 13.2kV primary feeders from electrical utility property manhole switches to feed the main-tie-main switchgear via two 1,200A service entrances switches and two 10 MVA service transformers. The redundant feeders, equipment, and main-tie-main configuration provide increased reliability should one of the utility feeders fail for any reason. Minimizing downtime is critical for this facility which serves a majority of Nassau County residents. H2M worked closely with the client, contractors, and electrical utility to reduce schedule setbacks and budgetary impacts due to material supply chain issues and changes in regulatory requirements that arose throughout construction.

Careful consideration was taken to ensure new equipment was located above the design flood elevation and effective flood-hardening materials and installation methods were implemented.

The existing on-site power generation engines supplied 2,400V power to the existing power distribution equipment throughout the plant. However, as equipment was upgraded in the years following Sandy, it was replaced with dual-voltage 2,400V/4,160V equipment in preparation to receive 4,160V power from the new 10MVA service transformers once they were put in service. This required modifications to all power distribution equipment prior to the connection of 4,160V power. A highly detail maintenance of operations plan was developed to clearly outline a step-by-step approach to the required equipment modifications in a manner which minimized any associated equipment downtime.