The CGC Communicator Newsletter Web Posting

Subject: Status of Electrical System Rebuild at Mt. Wilson Area

Date: May 14, 2006

From: Scott.Lacy (at) SCE.com


Greetings!!  It has been too long since I have provided an update about SCE's rebuild project for our electrical distribution system at the Mt. Wilson area, and I apologize for that.  So, here is a brief status of our efforts to date and an idea of what is coming up in the near future.
Please forward this information along to any and all personnel that might not get this notice directly and feel free to publish this note (or any
excerpts from it) in any other document that will benefit the area (i.e. the CGC Communicator).

Let me start by thanking you all for your understanding back on Dec. 6, 2005, when we had to subject you all to multiple outages throughout the day in order to transfer our existing 4kV electrical distribution system over to that mobile substation that is now parked below Fox TV's building. While there were a couple of glitches, everything went fairly well that day (and late into the evening).  We had crews there until nearly 2 am the next morning finishing everything up.  We did experience some voltage issues in the weeks following that transfer, but we've since resolved them.  We immediately went to work removing all of the old substation equipment and had the site completely cleared out a few days before Christmas.  From late January to late March, our civil contractor installed the necessary structures and foundations for the new equipment, which was delivered and placed in mid-April.  Since then, our electrical contractor (Par Electric) has been busy wiring up the new substation equipment and pre-wiring some of the new 16kV distribution system equipment in the area.  We are currently
expecting to energize that new substation by the end of this week (approximately May 19) or early next week.  This work should not affect any of your services, though I will send a subsequent notice out a couple of days ahead of the date that switching procedure will occur, so you'll know what's going on there.

Once the new substation equipment is energized, we will move on to the stage of the project that will most definitely impact each of you again ­ the conversion of each custtomer's individual service transformers from the old 4kV system to the new 16kV system.  We expect to convert one or two transformer banks per outage (which would only affect those customers on those transformers, likely to be just a couple at the time).  Depending on the complexity of the existing service, the outages could be as short as 4-6 hours or as long as 20-24 hours.  We will contact each of you individually with a specific date and estimate for your conversion, so we'll probably need to know some names of the right people to contact.  In general, the first area to be converted will be out towards the east end, beyond the gates and toward the observatory.  Figure on that area to be worked on in the last part of May and into early June (but certainly no outages to television transmitters until after May 24, assuming that's when sweeps month ends).  The crews will then work their way all the way out to the west end (i.e. CBS), along the north road, and then start working their way back in toward the facilities in the 'center' of the hill.  This work
will run through June and probably somewhat into July.

In the long term, we're still processing our request through the USFS for the rebuild of the 16kV circuit coming up the front side from Altadena. Assuming we get that approval soon, we hope to be working on that effort in the 3rd & 4th quarters of this year.  This work should not cause any planned outages for any of the service connections at Mt. Wilson, and only a couple of very brief outages at Mt. Harvard - which will, of course, be coordinated with all of the affected customers.

That should about cover it for now.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.  Thanks!


Scott R. Lacy, P.E.
Southern California Edison
Supv. Engineer, PQ/RTVI & Technical Studies
E-mail: lacysr (at) sce.com - or - scott.lacy (at) sce.com
PONY mail: Engineering, Foothill S/C
U.S. mail: 7951 Redwood Ave., Fontana, CA 92336

Telephone: 909-357-6589 (PAX 16089)
Facsimile:   909-357-6545 (PAX 16045)

Posted by Steve Blodgett
Earthsignals.com