ASHLAND – Ashland City Council on Tuesday approved the purchase of a new diesel-powered standby generator, a $432,965-upgrade to the city’s water pollution control plant.
The 800kW Caterpiller generator will replace an exitsing 350kW Kohler generator to help keep the plant running during power outages.
The existing generator was put in place in 1988 and can only run about half the plant, according to Director of City Utilities Michael Hunter.
“I don’t know why it was sized that way at the time except perhaps as a cost-savings measure, and the flow to the plant wasn’t as great as it is today,” Hunter said.
City Council President Steve Workman asked Hunter whether the city has just been lucky to be able to get by on the smaller generator.
Hunter responded by saying, “We have a $5-million hole in the ground called an EQ basin, and that saves us from time to time because it allows us to divert excess flow.”
But the city is gearing up for increased demand from a planned plant expansion to implement a new phosphorus reduction program, Hunter said. The new generator should be able to keep the entire plant running even with that increased demand, he said.
The generator is being purchased through a cooperative purchasing contract of the National Joint Powers Alliance.
The total project cost of $432,965 will include removal, transportation and reinstallation of the old generator, which Hunter said will be re-purposed in the city’s street department.
“This project actually has been under consideration since 2007, and I came in 2008,” Hunter said. “So we’ve been looking at this for a long time, but the funding wasn’t there. Over the years we’ve been able to build up a fund so we have the money available to do this.”
