The Nashville District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed the first part of a new supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system at the 28 MW J. Percy Priest hydropower plant, which is remotely operated from the Old Hickory hydropower plant.
The J. Percy Priest plant is on the Stones River in Nashville, Tenn., and the 100 MW Old Hickory plant is on the Cumberland River in Hendersonville, Tenn. The Corps said this is the first SCADA system installation in the Nashville District.
The SCADA system allows operators and controllers to operate the J. Percy Priest hydropower plant remotely. The Electronics Services Section and engineers at the hydropower plants will install control systems at all nine Nashville District hydropower plants and one at the Detroit District hydropower plant.
The SCADA system was originally installed in 1999 and needed prompt replacement due to the original contracting company going out of business, making it impossible to purchase replacement parts.
Originally, the new SCADA system was being built by a contracting company, but the company’s software was deemed obsolete right before installation, in May 2022. Nashville District engineers had to figure out how to replace the SCADA system with no additional funding available.
It took ESS three months to build the SCADA system and learn the coding language that operates it. Installation and testing of the new system took about two weeks and is one of the biggest in-house projects that has been performed in the district, according to a release.
To build the new SCADA system, ESS Supervisor Richard Reiger selected engineers and electronic mechanics within the district who were well-versed in hydropower plant operations and had working knowledge of the previous SCADA system.
Senior Electronics Mechanic Allen Hay first gathered data from several sources located at district hydropower plants. Once data acquisition was complete, Hay and Luke Ditto, hydropower plant senior electronics mechanic with the ESS, worked to code the start and stop sequences for the SCADA system. After coding the rest of the SCADA system operation functions, the ESS team worked with local electricians at the J. Percy Priest plant to begin installation.
The Corps said the SCADA system typically costs $3 million to $10 million for contractors to build, and the Corps had to find an alternative way to fund this project on such short notice.
The new SCADA system was built in the ESS lab and tested with simulators modeled after real Corps hydropower plants. The program interface was designed to work better than the previous system and provide more information to the two operating hydropower plants.
The SCADA system brings the Corps hydropower plant operations and controls to a more advanced level of operations.
The ESS has several responsibilities, including testing hydropower plant transformers, generators and circuit breakers to ensure peak functionality and maintaining SCADA, which allows remote control of hydropower. They also maintain safe and clear communication between power plants and conduct cybersecurity for the Nashville District’s nine hydropower plants and the Detroit District’s hydropower plant.
