Tour Of Victoria Hydro Station

Spring 1997 Tour Of Victoria Hydro Station

Location: near Rockland, Michigan
Date: Tues May 13, 1997 (10th Week)
Group Size: 37 signed up, 4 no-shows

Victoria Dam is located about an hour's drive west of campus. Drive out of town on M-26. Staying on M-26 (do not take M-38 to Ontanagon!), drive through Mass City and on to Rockland. As you drive into Rockland, turn left just before Henry's Inn at the sign "Old Victoria". The dam is about 2 miles out of Rockland. As you are driving downhill toward the dam, take the left fork in the road - this will take you into a public parking area. UPPCO's engineers will meet us there.

UPPCO has a small 12.4-MW hydro station there (two 6.2-MW units), which is remotely controlled from their dispatch center. The large penstock (pipeline) from the bottom of the dam to the turbine is 10 ft in diameter. There is about 215 ft of head (93 psig). The Francis turbines turn the 11.5-kV generators at 300 rpm. Each unit has a flow rate of 850 cu ft/sec at full capacity. The dam and hydro station were built in 1931 by Copper Range Mining Company.

This is a chance to get away from campus for four hours and see an operating hydro generating station. The relatively small size of the installation allows you to get a good overall understanding of hydro generation.

This trip has been a routine spring outing in years past - it's in a beautiful natural setting and has been described by others as a combined technical/nature tour (I have not been there yet).

We will carpool or get university vans. A signup sheet will be circulated in the 280/380/480 sequence courses. EE 111/211 students or any others in EE (tell your friends) are also welcome to come. You can also sign up via e-mail to bamork@mtu.edu: tell me which of the above classes you're in. Everyone going on the tour is responsible for their own advance arrangements for missed classes.