In the Field
Pump Station 1 connected to Prudhoe Bay power grid

Alyeska reached a pipeline reconfiguration milestone this spring when workers connected Pump Station 1 (PS 1) to Prudhoe Bay's central power grid.

PS 1 will use as much as 21 megawatts (MW) of electricity during normal operation after electrification is complete: enough power to serve 7,000 homes. It will use two new gas turbine generators to produce up to 18 MW of electricity onsite. Prudhoe Bay's central power station will provide additional electricity and could supply all of PS 1's power if needed. Workers started this power grid tie-in last winter by building an ice road and drilling and installing power poles that now carry 2,500 feet of overhead, 69-kilovolt power line. They also trenched and laid 1,100 feet of three-phase insulated cables beneath existing pipelines and roads. Project managers expect to terminate the tie line at a substation so that commercial power can be turned on later this fall. All of the pipeline's currently operating pump stations will be fully electrified after pipeline reconfiguration.

Following pipeline reconfiguration, PS 3 and PS 4 will generate all power onsite and PS 09 will receive commercial power from Golden Valley Electric Association via another substation to be installed this fall.

The 800-mile-long trans-Alaska pipeline currently transports nearly one million barrels of crude oil per day from Prudhoe Bay to the port of Valdez. Pump Stations 1, 3, 4, 5 and 9 will be upgraded and standardized with equipment and new electric-motor-driven pumps. Pump Station 5 will not require a new pump module but will be upgraded to function as a relief station on the lower side of Atigun Pass.