Hydropower turbine installed in Libby's waterworks
Archie Kinney, left, and Mike Wagner work on installing an inline hydropower turbine into Libby’s water system in early July. (John Blodgett/The Western News)
Nathan Smith of SOAR Technologies, background, checks the systems that operate Libby’s new inline hydropower turbine, foreground. (John Blodgett/The Western News)
After about four years of study, design and engineering, the installation of a hydropower turbine into Libby’s waterworks was completed July 21. It will serve double-duty as a pressure-reducing valve and as a power-generating device.
“There are not a lot of cities in Montana that produce power,” said City Administrator Jim Hammons. “Some cities don’t have a charter like we do, which allows us to do something like this.”
Hammons said the project arose out of a search for different ways the city could generate revenue.
“If you can find ways to reduce power or costs, we got to look at it,” Hammons said.
The Kootenai River Development Council awarded the city a Big Sky Trust Fund grant in February 2013 to study the feasibility of adding hydropower generation to the city’s water system. The grant was for $17,500 plus a $8,750 match from the city.
After a preliminary engineering report provided a path forward, the city in 2015 tapped Soar Hydropower of Redmond, Washington to design, engineer and install the power generating apparatus.
Soar’s Nathan Smith said the company specializes in designing systems to recover energy from waterworks. Soar founder Mike Maloney said the turbine they developed for Libby — utilizing a Francis turbine with adjustable flow capabilities — is the first such inline turbine to be installed in Montana and the first one the company designed to of this size.
What also makes it unique at this scale, Maloney said, is that it also serves to reduce the water pressure coming into the city’s waterworks from Flower Creek Dam from about 116 PSI to about 50 PSI.
To finance the project, Flathead Electric agreed to pre-purchase $122,125 of the power that will be generated by the turbine.
“Pre-purchasing the energy made the project feasible for Libby and gives Flathead Electric another local source of clean energy,” Mark Johnson, Flathead Electric general manager, said via email.
Hammons said it’s hard to predict how long it will take for Flathead Electric to draw that much power from the turbine — it could take 10 to 15 years, he said — but after that the “power we produce (with the turbine) will offset the power we buy at the power plant.”
Some hiccups occurred during installation, which began in April. A misalignment in the plumbing, caused by years of water vibration, required a section of pipe, called a spool, to be re-fabricated, a task handled by Montana Machine and Fabrication of Libby. Soar later had to bring the turbine back to its headquarters to work out an issue with the turbine’s adjustable flow gates.
But now it’s ready to generate power.
“I think long-term this is really going to benefit the city,” he said.