The New Jersey Alliance for Action's Distinguished Engineering Award program honors innovative, unique and outstanding engineering projects for their impacts on the state’s economy and environment.

The reason to honor is because this project aided in the protection of an important piece of infrastructure in New Jersey serving the needs of the public by making the power distribution network more resilient.  This was done against the challenge of maintaining plant operations during construction.

PROJECT SUMMARY : Hurricane Sandy caused flooding and raised water levels that were sustained for several hours at the Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority wastewater plant in Union Beach, NJ. 

During the flooding most of the outdoor electrical distribution equipment such as the main 15KV switchgear, transformers, transformer switches, switchgear enclosures, load banks, pull boxes, and electrical manholes were all exposed to salt water flooding. The salt water then traveled into the underground conduit system and traversed into the buildings and indoor equipment. The outdoor equipment was damaged and exhibited signs of corrosion.

The primary components of the power distribution system consist of the 12.47KV distribution network beginning at JCP&L’s service pole. The network includes the 15KV Main Substation, five separately located transformers (T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5) servicing three main buildings where power is transformed down to 480/277V, load banks at the transformer substations and the conductors between the main substation and transformers. These existing components are susceptible to potential flooding and BRSA desired to design a system that protects the equipment above the 500 year flood elevation.

After a study was conducted to determine the best strategy for mitigating against future flooding to the 500 year flood elevation, design drawings and specifications were developed for the recommended plan. Construction began in 2017 and is completing in the fall of 2019.  A significant challenge of the project was to design a system that could be installed while maintaining operations of the facility.

The specific components of this project include:
New substations, transformers and/or electrical distribution gear were constructed in prefabricated enclosures and installed onto steel platforms at elevations above the 500 year flood level. Most of these new platforms were installed in the same footprint of the existing gear, leading, in some cases to higher elevations than then minimum desired 500 year flood level protection. One platform was installed in an area adjacent to the existing gear.  An added benefit of the project was the ability to add redundancy to the power distributed to the Incinerator Building, where there was none prior .

 print 

If you have any trouble with accessing information contained within this website, please contact, our webmaster.

Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority     |     100 Oak Street, Union Beach, NJ 07735     |     732-739-1095