MALAGA — Two critical electric substations that power the potlines at Alcoa’s Wenatchee Works smelter have received a $20 million overhaul to reduce the chance of a potentially catastrophic, unexpected outage.

Alcoa funded the project, which modernizes aging equipment and provides more reliable back-up power at the Chelan County PUD’s McKenzie Substation and part of the Bonneville Power Administration’s (BPA) former Valhalla Substation. Some of the parts replaced were about 60 years old.

The PUD used part of the Alcoa funding to buy that part of Valhalla from the Portland-based BPA to become the smelter’s primary supplier of electricity.

Both substations are already at work, George Velazquez, the PUD’s manager of the project, said Thursday. Crews are now installing control panels that electronically monitor the stations and alert officials to problems. Final testing should be finished by late April.

The job was complicated, Velazquez said, because both stations had to remain energized during modernization to keep power flowing to Alcoa’s two and, later, three pot lines.

Glowing red hot with molten metal, a pot line that loses power can freeze up, requiring a costly rebuild.

Crews from the PUD, Alcoa, BPA and contractors worked together on the project.

“It went very smoothly,” Velazquez said. “There were a lot of rings in the circus. It was a challenge to get that many stakeholders who each have a big stake in it to coordinate.”

The substations receive high-voltage power transmitted from the dams and reduce it to a voltage usable by the smelter.

Christine Pratt: 665-1173

pratt@wenatcheeworld.com