Hydro Leader July/August

Leader ydro H VOLUME 3 ISSUE 7

july/august 2022

Debra Smith of Seattle City Light: Planning for an Electric Future

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Debra Smith of Seattle City Light: Planning for an Electric Future

Hydro Leader Hydro Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

an American company established in 2009.

Contents

July/August 2022 Volume 3, Issue 7 5 S upply Chain Challenges

By Kris Polly 8 Debra

Smith of Seattle City Light: Planning for an Electric Future 14 J an Nimick of Pacific Gas and Electric: LongTerm Planning Amid Unpredictable Supply Chain Disruptions 18 T y Ehrman of Grant Public Utility District on Supply Chain Issues, Employee Retention, and Increasing Generation 22 N . Christian Porse: Managing Risk and SupplyChain Uncertainty at Mavel

26 D arren Lampe: How Supply Chain Disruptions Are Affecting a Small Specialty Hydro Construction Company 28 P aul Meeks: Confronting Supply Chain Challenges at Worthington Products 34 S tuart Cohen of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Analyzing Pumped Hydro’s Role in a Stable Electricity Grid 36 W hat You Should Know About the National Hydropower Association’s Clean Currents 2022 Conference

SUBMISSIONS: Hydro Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or hydro.leader@waterstrategies.com.

ADVERTISING: Hydro Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com or Tom Wacker at tom.wacker@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Hydro Leader is distributed to all hydroelectric facility owners in the United States, to hydrorelated businesses, and to every member of Congress and governor’s office. For address corrections or additions, or if you would prefer to receive Hydro Leader in electronic form, please contact us at admin@waterstrategies.com.

39 JOB LISTINGS

Copyright © 2022 Water Strategies LLC. Hydro Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Hydro Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Hydro Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Hydro Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

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hydro_leadr

/company/water-strategies-llc hydro.leader

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COVER PHOTO:

Debra Smith, General Manager and CEO, Seattle City Light.

Photo courtesy of Seattle City Light.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF SEATTLE CITY LIGHT.

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Elaine Robbins, Copyeditor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Tom Wacker, Advertising Coordinator Patricia Bown, Media Assistant Eve Giordano, Media Assistant William Polly, Media Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Assistant Amanda Schultz,Media Assistant

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Supply Chain Challenges

S

upply chain disruptions and delays have filled the news for a year now. But how have those disruptions played out for the utilities, manufacturers, suppliers, and contractors in the hydro industry? This month, we dive into the question.

Our cover interview is with Debra Smith, the general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light, which serves a population of nearly a million and gets 86 percent of its energy from hydropower. Ms. Smith tells us about the utility’s push toward electrification, its plans for new generation, and its experiences with supply chain disruptions and labor shortages. Also on the utility side, Jan Nimick, the vice president for power generation at the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, or PG&E, tells us about sudden raw material price increases and availability issues, among other shocks, and about the need to take a long-term view.

Ty Ehrman, the managing director of power production at Grant Public Utility District in Washington, tells us about how the utility is addressing material availability issues and delays and the challenges of retaining employees in a new era of hybrid work while preserving its low rates and attracting new industrial customers.

Turbine manufacturer Mavel’s U.S. regional sales manager, N. Christian Porse, tells us about challenges related to material costs, pricing risk, and the difficulties of keeping projects on schedule. Meanwhile, Darren Lampe tells us that his small specialty construction company D.A. Lampe Construction has been facing unpredictable price increases for raw materials and components. And Paul Meeks, the

“

By Kris Polly

president and founder of Worthington Products, tells us about the price increases and shipping delays he has seen and how his company is shifting from a supply-chain model to a supply-net concept in response.

We also speak with Stuart Cohen, a senior energy analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), about NREL’s work to create models for pumped hydro storage to enable researchers and policymakers to compare pumped hydro feasibility and cost with other energy storage technologies.

Finally, we preview the National Hydropower Association’s Clean Currents conference, which will be held the week of October 17 in Sacramento, California.

Marla Barnes, NHA’s vice president of membership and industry engagement, tells us about what makes this event, run by the industry, for the industry, unique and valuable.

The many entities that make possible the provision of clean, carbon-neutral hydroelectric power to U.S. consumers are all being affected by supply chain issues in different ways, but all are responding with the robustness and creativity we expect from this vibrant industry. I hope you enjoy learning more. H Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Hydro Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Debra Smith of Seattle City Light: Planning for an Electric Future

Diablo Dam, located on the upper Skagit River in Whatcom County, Washington, is one of the three major dams of Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project.

D

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

8 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Debra Smith: I usually say that I fell into this industry quite by accident. My background is in finance. I worked for a bank and then for a small computer company in Eugene, Oregon, for 9 years. I also spent a year as a stay-at-home mom of three little kids. I thought I wanted to go back to school, and I applied to get my master’s at Oregon. Meanwhile, my family said, “You’re really not a very good stay-at-home mom. You should find something to do.” One day, another mom told me that her husband’s employer, the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB), was hiring for a job share in accounting. I applied and started at EWEB in January 1996 as a senior staff accountant. Power risk management began to emerge as an important area of focus, and since I was only working half time in accounting, I was able to step up and learn new skills. EWEB had a trading floor, but at that time, most trading was done through bilateral agreements. As the energy markets became mature, power risk management hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEATTLE CITY LIGHT.

ebra Smith brings years of experience in finance, risk management, and running utilities to her current role as the general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light. The utility serves a population of nearly a million and gets 86 percent of its energy from hydropower. Seattle City Light is amid a major push toward electrification, which will help decarbonize the local economy and transportation system while also improving the utility’s finances over the long term. Meanwhile, like many utilities across the nation and the world, it is experiencing major challenges related to supply chain disruptions and labor shortages created by the COVID‑19 pandemic and geopolitical shocks such as the war in Ukraine. In this interview, Ms. Smith tells us about how Seattle City Light is facing up to these challenges and planning for the future.

ADVERTISEMENT became essential, and I had the opportunity to help develop the utility’s first risk management policies. Eventually, a job in traditional risk management opened up, and we were able to combine the role with power risk management. That was my turning point.

I moved into leadership at EWEB and spent 17 years serving in a variety of positions, starting as a staff accountant and ultimately serving as the assistant general manager. I knew I wanted the opportunity to lead at the highest level. I applied and became the general manager of a small transmission-and-distribution-only utility on the Oregon coast, Central Lincoln People’s Utility District, where I spent 5½ years. It was an amazing experience, and we accomplished a great deal, but it was clear that the organization needed to slow down and allow roots to grow under the changes we’d made. I, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to rest, and I started to look around at other opportunities.

At that point, a recruiter hired by the City of Seattle reached out to me, and the organization turned out to be a great fit. During my time at EWEB, I had served on the executive team and had been responsible for the environmental department, which included relicensing.

EWEB was committed to energy efficiency and was a leader in providing low-income assistance programs, both things that Seattle stood for. In my initial conversations with Seattle, it became clear that my experience at EWEB would be directly applicable to a role there. I knew it was going to be a big scale-up, but I was confident that I could do it. I have been the general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light since October 2018.

With a capacity of 1,100 megawatts, Boundary Dam, located on the Pend Oreille River, makes up a significant portion of Seattle City Light’s energy portfolio.

Hydro Leader: How large is Seattle City Light’s service area, and how many people do you serve?

Debra Smith: Our service area covers 131 square miles and has a population of 955,116. We have 426,359 residential customers and 51,219 commercial and industrial customers.

The Denny Substation, energized in May 2018, provides reliability and flexibility to Seattle City LIght’s system through the ability to back up adjacent substations.

Hydro Leader: What is the source of your electricity, and what portion is provided by hydropower?

Debra Smith: Our current power mix is 86 percent hydropower, 5 percent wind, 5 percent nuclear, 1 percent biogas, and 3 percent unspecified power from wholesale markets.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us more about Seattle City Light as an organization.

Debra Smith: One of the attractive things about Seattle City Light is the caliber and the quality of staff. I work with people who are well educated, great at their jobs, and committed to public service. When I came on, however, I noticed that the organization was not rowing together. hydroleadermagazine.com

Seattle City Light has 426,359 residential customers and 51,219 commercial and industrial customers.

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Ross Dam forms part of the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project and can generate up to 460 megawatts of electricity.

There were lots of good things happening in disparate ways, but it was neither a team-focused nor a customerfocused organization. It became clear that if we were going to change the nature of our relationship with customers, we were going to have to lean into creating an environment in which employees felt safe and supported.

For as long as I’ve been in this industry, we’ve talked about the changes that were coming. We now know that in fact, we are in the midst of a major transformation. One of our lead business strategies is to create our energy future and to do so in a way that delivers on customer expectations.

We are working to do both at the same time that new technologies are emerging. The sweet spot is to plan for the future in a way that aligns customers’ wants with our vision for the future. It’s tricky at times.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your experience with electrification.

10 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Hydro Leader: What supply chain disruptions have you been dealing with, and how have you responded?

Debra Smith: Supply chain disruptions are a huge talking point and area of concern at almost every national or even regional meeting that I attend, whether in person or remote. These disruptions are affecting every industry, and energy is no exception. We started to recognize the problem when the lead times for some of our commoditylike products, such as transformers and cable, started to grow. We began to see early signs of disruption early in 2021 as activity levels in Seattle began to rebound from the pandemic; by fall 2021, the effect of delays was becoming noticeable. By the start of 2022, we had significant concerns. The global disruption caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic has contributed to the scarcity of goods in many ways, including through a lack of raw materials and a shortage of labor. The labor market is tight, which affects transportation, manufacturing, and even ports, as we’ve all seen. City Light currently has a 15 percent vacancy rate, so we certainly understand how similar vacancy rates at various points along the hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEATTLE CITY LIGHT.

Debra Smith: When I got here, electrification was coming, but until the transportation electrification legislation was passed in Olympia, we weren’t equipped to develop or roll out specific programs. Some folks in the industry call Seattle the grandfather of energy efficiency, which is great. However, our cumulative investment in conservation also meant that loads were decreasing despite increasing customer counts and rapid growth in the city of Seattle and the surrounding communities we serve. Our load curve had been heading south for some time, which wasn’t sustainable. We were raising rates 5–6 percent every year because we needed to cover the increasing costs of labor and supplies but were having to spread those costs over a smaller number of kilowatt-hours. Our rate trajectory definitely didn’t align with our customers’ expectations. The State of Washington and the City of Seattle have both established building performance standards and requirements for new construction. Those new loads are critical to our ability to flatten the curve of our rate trajectory. We are all in on electrification because that’s what is going to allow us to continue leaning into energy efficiency. Our integrated resource plan will be submitted to the Washington Department of Commerce by the end of the year, and

for the first time in a very long time, we have a plan that demonstrates a future need for new resources. We project that by 2027–2028, we will need additional resources to meet the electrification load that we see coming our way.

The Pacific Northwest is blessed with abundant hydro resources. This makes the transportation sector, rather than electricity, the region’s largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, at about 45 percent. Therefore, we’re very focused on transportation electrification. We’re looking beyond personal vehicles to transit, ferries, commercial fleets, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, ride-share vehicles, and micromobility options such as e-bikes and scooters. We recently launched a pilot program to install public level 2 electric vehicle chargers at curbside locations. In a dense city like Seattle in which many residents live in multiunit dwellings without off-street parking, this is a game changer.

Unique to the program is that we’re asking residents to submit requests to determine where it makes the most sense to locate these chargers.

ADVERTISEMENT supply chain create issues for the folks who supply us with critical products. The war in Ukraine has further exacerbated these issues. For instance, I worry that more difficult access to the raw materials essential for battery production will slow our nation’s progress toward decarbonization goals. Ukraine is a primary source of lithium, after all. Our industry is scrambling to find alternative sources of raw materials and to bring the manufacture of some of those products home.

Hydro Leader: What sorts of price increases have you seen?

Debra Smith: Our price increases have ranged anywhere from 6 percent to 90 percent. We submit a strategic plan to the city council every 2 years that includes a 6‑year rate trajectory. Our previous strategic plan projected rate increases of 3.7 percent for 2023 and 2024. In the plan update that’s just been completed, we’ve had to increase those projected increases to 4.5 percent to help cover the price inflation we’re experiencing. We’re also just absorbing a good chunk of those increased costs. We’ve had to look strategically at all our work and ask, “Are there ways in which we can meet our developers’ and customers’ timelines, even if it might mean temporary deviations from our previous standards?” We are also committed to looking for alternative ways to meet our own construction needs. For example, we are amid a multiyear accelerated overhead pole replacement project. Typically, when we replace a pole, we always hang a new transformer on it, but to save costs, we are rehanging the cans. In the future, we’ll wind up going back to replace some of these transformers at additional cost, but rehanging them now allows us to keep our workforce engaged and on track to meet our pole-replacement goals. We’ve also created an internal task force, implemented our incident command structure, and asked one of best and brightest distribution engineers to lead the effort. He has a core team with folks from procurement, contracting, communications, operations, customer design, and engineering. It’s an all-hands-ondeck effort. In addition, and because of our 15 percent vacancy rate, City Light is using more contractors to ensure that customer work is at least designed and that work packages are ready so that as materials do become available, we can get to work right away.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about your current relicensing work?

Debra Smith: We are currently relicensing one of our major projects, the Skagit River Hydroelectric Project, a series of three dams that provide 20 percent of City Light’s power. The current license expires in 2025. Renewing the license means reviewing the safety, cost, environmental, and cultural impacts of the continued operation of the project. From 2020 through 2023, we are collaborating hydroleadermagazine.com

with 38 partner organizations and consulting parties, including federal and state agencies, Indian tribes, and nongovernmental organizations, to gather the information needed to ensure the protection of natural and cultural resources within the Skagit Project area for the duration of the new license, which will last 30–50 years. The license will include requirements to protect the environment and the culture of the watershed.

Relicensing often involves rewinding and sometimes even replacing turbines—projects with long lead times that involve a significant amount of raw material. We are several years away from implementation, so fortunately, supply chain disruptions are not an issue at this time. Nonetheless, I worry. I know there are many hydro projects due to be relicensed over the next 10 years. I hope that we as a country work through the supply chain issues before these projects are in the implementation stage.

Hydro Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Debra Smith: At the beginning of the pandemic, we brought together a group of City Light’s most innovative employees and asked them to figure out what it would take to make us a utility of the future. We called the resulting portfolio of projects Utility Next 2.0, and my hope was that we’d be ready as an organization to pursue federal stimulus–type funding when and if it became available. Implementing that portfolio of projects will bring together the two priorities I discussed earlier— creating our energy future and improving the customer experience. That’s my vision for the future. Having a smart, resilient, interactive grid, compared with what we have now, will be like going from a flip phone to the latest model of the iPhone. The flip phone lets us make calls, and that’s about it. The apps available for smartphones help us manage every aspect of life. I believe a smart grid will do the same for civic life, and I can’t wait to help make it happen. Smart electrification is about embracing technology in ways that improve our quality of life: Managed charging, integrated smart appliances, and even vehicle-to-grid technology all require a modern grid. Seattle City Light is all in on that effort, and we are focused on carrying it out with an equity lens. We are committed to ensuring that folks who have traditionally had to do more with less because of institutional racism and bias will be the first people to receive the benefits of our portfolio and our grid modernization efforts. H Debra Smith is the general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light. For more about Seattle City Light, visit www.seattle.gov/city-light.

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Jan Nimick of Pacific Gas and Electric: Long-Term Planning Amid Unpredictable Supply Chain Disruptions

Jan Nimick (right) during a field visit.

T

he Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is a major California utility that serves around 16 million people with a portfolio in which hydropower plays a major role.

The supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have caused sudden raw material price increases and availability issues, among other shocks, for PG&E and its suppliers and contractors. PG&E is considering possible responses that range from helping vendors purchase commodities in advance to sourcing more products from the United States.

Hydro Leader spoke with Jan Nimick, PG&E’s vice president for power generation, about what the global disruptions mean for California’s largest utility.

Hydro Leader: ​​Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

14 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF PG&E.

Jan Nimick: I joined the Navy right out of high school as part of its nuclear power program. When I got out of the Navy, I worked as a boiler operator for the State of California while I initially went to college at the California

Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. I then started doing some contract work for the local Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. In 1997, I took a job as a nuclear power plant operator, which was my first full-time job at PG&E. A couple of years later, when I finished my engineering degree, I worked as a senior reactor operator.

Eventually, I became the director of operations, then the station director, and then the senior director of engineering, technical, and emergency services. In that position, I was responsible for engineering projects, physical security, cybersecurity, fuels purchasing, fuels storage—basically all the things that support a power plant other than running it. The Camp Fire occurred on November 8, 2018, and the company did a lot of work on the community wildfire safety program. I volunteered for a brief rotation to help out with that work. I spent about 5 months organizing the inspections of all the distribution poles to identify items that needed to be repaired. I am currently PG&E’s vice president of power generation. I am responsible for all the generation that is not nuclear. The hydro fleet has about 160 dams,

ADVERTISEMENT 100 units at 64 powerhouses, about 150 megawatts (MW) of solar, two combined-cycle units, one reciprocating-engine unit, and a new 180 MW battery storage unit at Elkhorn, which can deliver 4 hours of energy to the grid.

Hydro Leader: ​​W hat is PG&E’s geographical range, and how many people does it serve?

Jan Nimick: We are the largest utility in California. We serve about 16 million people in a 70,000‑square-mile service area in northern and central California. Our service area reaches Lompoc in Santa Barbara County in the south, nearly to Oregon in the north, and the Sierras in the east. This large area is quite diverse. We serve dense urban communities in the Bay Area; large agricultural interests in the Central Valley; and small rural communities in the eastern part of the state.

Hydro Leader: ​​W hat percentage of your generation is provided by hydropower?

PHOTO BY THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Jan Nimick: The fraction of our generation that comes from hydro varies widely with the rain year, but it historically averages 31 percent. California’s hydro is unusual in that we have a lot of elevation and not much water. We run our hydro as a dispatchable resource. We have only a few Kaplan turbines and very little generation that I would describe as run of river.

The way our hydro facilities are constructed is with a reservoir up high and a diversion through a series of conveyances that take the water down to the powerhouse, which is much lower.

Most of our turbines are Pelton turbines, and we run our hydro largely to support the morning and evening peaks of energy demand. That has become increasingly important as more solar has penetrated the market. You’ve got solar generation on the grid, but it doesn’t come on until after the morning peak, and it’s ramping off about the time the evening peak occurs. We handle that peak demand with natural gas imports, combinedcycle plants, and hydro. Given that role, hydro is a renewable resource that enables other renewable resources to operate. The other thing that’s notable about our system is that we have a 1,200 MW pumped storage facility at Helms, which operates between two reservoirs. It has been instrumental in enabling the penetration of solar and wind into the market, since it pumps water when the grid is in overgeneration and saves that potential energy for when it’s needed.

Hydro Leader: ​​How have supply chain disruptions affected your operations?

Jan Nimick: The problems with the supply chain started even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During the height of the COVID‑19 pandemic, we had problems getting Carpi liners for dam leakage improvement projects because the materials are shipped in container ships. That was one big material challenge. We had experts from hydroleadermagazine.com

PG&E owns the Pit-3 hydroelectric dam on the Pit River in Northern California.

Canada who had a hard time getting into the country because of travel restrictions. We’ve also been seeing shortages of the small-scale transformers that are used to step down from primary to secondary voltage. More recently, since the beginning of the war, the price of steel has been going through the roof. We’re not seeing this yet, but since Russia is a big producer of nickel, we predict that stainless steel will also be much more difficult to come by.

As we try to put contracts in place, it’s difficult for our vendors to price them, because they don’t know what they’re going to be paying for steel or stainless steel when the time comes. We’ve been exploring various ways to address that. We’re looking at whether we can pay more of the contract price up front so that the vendor can obtain materials in advance. We’re also looking at production in the United States and wondering whether we can source more here. Initially, that’s going to cost more, because U.S. labor is more costly. But I think that over time, as U.S. companies see the market coming back to them, there will be more of them, and market forces will help control prices. Our vendors are also looking at markets in Asia.

Mostly, I’m thinking of big valves, big components— things that take engineering and have a long wait time.

I’m hearing from our vendors that they’re looking at South Korea and Japan, places where they can get a high-quality product. Those are some of the strategies that are being considered to meet these challenges, particularly the price of steel and the uncertainty about future prices.

Hydro Leader: ​​To what degree have your vendors explained to you what they are experiencing?

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Hydro Leader: ​​Have you delayed or canceled any projects in response to these disruptions?

Jan Nimick: We have considered it, but we haven’t canceled or delayed anything yet. The vendors are asking us to stick with it. We recognize that if we start delaying or canceling projects, it will affect the long-term reliability of our infrastructure. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but at some point, the grid would become less reliable and more vulnerable because of insufficient generation. The other thing is that if we stop doing projects, then our vendors will have to downsize. They’ll have to lay people off, and those people will go off to other industries. Then, when better times come and we want to ramp up again, our vendors will have a harder time doing that.

Hydro Leader: ​Obviously, it’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen in situations such as the war in Ukraine. How do you try to plan around that?

Jan Nimick: What is going to occur in Ukraine is hard to predict. Before February 24, I didn’t hear anybody predicting that the Ukrainians would still be in control of their army and retain control of Kyiv after several months. What’s not hard to predict, though, is that this disruption will continue for at least a couple of years. If the war were to stop today, the economy of Ukraine would take a long time to recover. The sanctions against the Russians aren’t going to be lifted anytime soon, either, so the global economy will be in a more difficult place for the foreseeable future. I think we’re going to see simpler but also more expensive supply chains for at least the next 5 years. We just need to plan for that.

Jan Nimick visits a PG&E facility.

16 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Jan Nimick: Hydro is a long-term industry. It provides enormous benefit to our communities, our customers, and the people we serve. It takes a long time to build a new project, but the benefits last a long time, too. If any industry should take the long view, it’s us. We need to think about these disruptions in those terms and avoid short-term damage-control decisions that will affect our reliability and our ability to serve our customers and communities in the long term. H

Jan Nimick is Pacific Gas and Electric’s vice president for power generation. For more about PG&E, visit pge.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PG&E.

Jan Nimick: Up to now, our vendors have largely been assuming the risk of price uncertainty. Now, they’re asking us, appropriately, to share that risk. I talked to one vendor who had a quote on obtaining steel that was only good for 30 minutes. He said he’d never heard anything like it before. The supplier told him on the phone, “It will be this much for this quantity, and you’ve got 30 minutes to decide whether you’re going to take it or leave it.” It’s a very unsettled situation. The Wall Street Journal posited that we will be seeing a period of deglobalization in which we’ll look to make supply chains shorter and located more within our borders, with less shipping of things overseas. As a result, prices will go up, but we’ll also see industries that have languished over time be redeveloped in the United States.

Maybe we’ll start to see more foundries, steel work, and that kind of thing. We’re going to see rising prices and price uncertainty, at least until the markets catch up with the new reality of uncertain supply chains.

Hydro Leader: ​​Is there anything you would like to add?

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Ty Ehrman of Grant Public Utility District on Supply Chain Issues, Employee Retention, and Increasing Generation

Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River.

G

rant Public Utility District (PUD) operates two Columbia River dams to bring power to the rural, predominantly agricultural region of Grant County in north-central Washington State. The customer-owned public utility has low rates that are attractive to new industries moving to the area. In this interview, Grant PUD’s managing director of power production, Ty Ehrman, speaks with Hydro Leader about dealing with supply chain issues, retaining employees in a new era of hybrid work, and seeking out additional generation capacity.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

18 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Ty Ehrman: Grant PUD is a customer-owned public utility district in north-central Washington State. We are essentially dependent on one water source: the Columbia River. We operate two Columbia River dams and two smaller hydro generators and deliver power to more than 50,000 customers over a sparsely populated 2,777‑squaremile area. We have about 740 employees, 280 of them on the power production side. We have a generation capacity of 2,153.6 megawatts, with an 850‑megawatt retail power delivery system peak load.

Hydro Leader: What other similar facilities are above and below you on the Columbia River?

Ty Ehrman: We’re the third PUD on the mid-Columbia.

There are three dams above us that are also run by PUDs. Above that are Chief Joseph Dam, which is owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Grand Coulee Dam, which is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation. A lot of our hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF GRANT PUD.

Ty Ehrman: I came to the industry from heavy equipment manufacturing, where I worked as an engineering manager. I joined Grant PUD 12 years ago and worked as an engineer, maintenance planner, supervisor, and plant manager before starting my current position as the managing director of power production. I run the power generation side of our business.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce Grant PUD.

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Priest Rapids Dam on the Columbia River.

water supply depends on what is released through Grand Coulee Dam. Downstream of us on the lower Columbia are four more Army Corps dams: McNary, John Day, The Dalles, and Bonneville.

Hydro Leader: Do you have agreements with those entities to ensure that you get the flows you need and that you pass along what downstream users need?

Ty Ehrman: There used to be an arrangement called the Mid-Columbia Hourly Coordinating Agreement that involved sharing certain information on what was going to be released and on flow requirements. Just downstream of us is the Hanford Reach, the longest free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River. Flow requirements in the Hanford Reach vary throughout the year and are critical during the fall chinook spawning and rearing seasons. That coordinating agreement lapsed several years ago and has not been replaced. For the most part, we get what we need to serve the flow requirements on the environmental side, but it has gotten closer and dicier at times than it used to be.

Hydro Leader: Is that because there is no agreement or because there is less water available?

Ty Ehrman: It is primarily because there is no agreement in place. Drought and water supply have not been an issue for us. We get almost all our water from the Canadian Rockies, and we have not seen significant changes in supply. hydroleadermagazine.com

Hydro Leader: What role does hydropower play in Grant PUD’s power supply?

Ty Ehrman: Hydro makes up nearly the entirety of our power generation. We also have a share of the Nine Canyon Wind Project to meet state regulations for renewable shares, but it’s a relatively small share.

Hydro Leader: Does that imply that the state does not consider hydropower renewable?

Ty Ehrman: Yes. Under the Washington Energy Independence Act (I-937), existing hydro does not qualify as renewable, although incremental hydropower and efficiency gains do.

Hydro Leader: Have you been dealing with any supply chain disruptions?

Ty Ehrman: Supply disruptions have affected our capital projects and our operations and maintenance work. We have had issues getting operational components, piping, switchgear, and all kinds of construction materials. Our procurement staff and engineers have had to work a lot harder to find what we need. We’ve had to make adjustments to schedules because wait times have frequently been long. It seems that everything we need that is dependent on petroleum is still coming in, but at a higher price and longer lead time.

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Hydro Leader: Have those disruptions led to costs being passed on to your customers, or are you able to absorb them through your operating budget?

Ty Ehrman: We have a buffer for the time being, but if costs keep going up, our board will have to make some difficult decisions that might include rate increases for our power customers.

Hydro Leader: Have you had to cancel or delay any projects because of these supply chain issues?

Ty Ehrman: For the most part, we’ve been able to weather these issues, at least for the large projects that have consequences for us. For the smaller stuff, it has definitely had an effect. Right now, we’re working on a project focused on replacing station service and substation switchgear, and we’ve had to delay portions of that work.

Delays can create further uncertainty about costs. For example, we’ve had to delay an ongoing capital project at Priest Rapids Dam to rebuild part of the embankment. We bid it at $37 million. We had 2 years of permitting delays, and by the time we resolved those delays, the cost had increased dramatically. The contractor got a $14 million adjustment—an increase of approximately 40 percent.

That’s all due to increases in the cost of construction materials and labor. It’s pretty painful in some cases.

Hydro Leader: Do contractors communicate with you as these things play out?

Ty Ehrman: Yes, absolutely. One thing that happens is that we will get quotes that are only good for 10 days. Ninety days doesn’t happen anymore. It seems like everybody is nervous about increases in commodity costs.

Hydro Leader: How has the PUD responded to these issues?

Ty Ehrman: For the most part, we haven’t canceled projects because of price increases. We have twice had to delay a hatchery project because the lead times required to get components made potential bidders shy away. They looked at the schedule and lead times for parts and decided the risk was too great.

Hydro Leader: Do you have any sense of how long these disruptions might continue?

Hydro Leader: Have you been dealing with a lot of staff turnover?

20 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Hydro Leader: What percentage of your workforce has to work on site because of the nature of their jobs?

Ty Ehrman: In the power production side of the business, about 170 of our 280 people need to work on site. At the PUD as a whole, about 350 of 740 need to be on site to do their jobs.

Hydro Leader: What does the future look like for Grant PUD? Ty Ehrman: We will run out of generation capacity to serve our load in about 7 years, so we are exploring how we can increase our generation. Our hydro resources are limited because our dams are run of river and don’t have significant storage capabilities. Our highest peak loads are during the winter and summer, and we get most of our water in the spring. That is one of the limitations of run-of-the-river hydro facilities like ours. All this means we will have to look at other generation options to serve our increasing load. We are exploring with two companies, X-energy and Nuscale, to look at promising technologies such as small, modular nuclear reactors, among other options. If it comes to fruition, we’ll have additional generation, which is exciting.

Large industrial customers are moving to our area, attracted in part by our low rates. We have some of the lowest rates in the nation. That creates a lot of benefits.

Electricity-intensive facilities benefit the rest of our customers because they increase our revenue, allowing us to keep rates low for all our customers. We have a significant backlog of large industrial customers who are still interested in establishing facilities here, and the expectation of those future loads drives our capital investment on the transmission and distribution side. H Ty Ehrman is the managing director of power production at Grant PUD. For more information about Grant PUD, contact publicaffairs@gcpud.org.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF GRANT PUD.

Ty Ehrman: I don’t think that things are going to come back down to the prepandemic level anytime soon. I anticipate that we’re going to be dealing with some of these things for at least another year, possibly 2 or 3.

Ty Ehrman: We’ve been pretty fortunate. We have a good culture here. We’ve also made some adjustments to the way that we structure hybrid work. We have more flexibility for job classifications that allow for remote work, and that’s helped us with retention. During the pandemic, we even hired some people who work out of state, which is unusual for a publicly owned utility. We are seeing a change in attitude when we try to hire new people. When potential hires ask about working from home, and we explain that our policy requires a minimum of 2 days a week on site, they often decide to go work for a company that allows them to work from home full time.

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N. Christian Porse: Managing Risk and Supply-Chain Uncertainty at Mavel

A turbine element being manufactured in a Mavel factory.

C

zech Republic–based Mavel has designed and manufactured turbines and provided related equipment for hydroelectric power projects in 45 countries since 1990 with capacity ranging from 30 kilowatts to 30 megawatts.

Hydro Leader spoke with U.S. Regional Sales Manager N. Christian Porse about how Mavel is navigating risk in an era of price uncertainty and supply chain issues.

and regulatory compliance at a 108-megawatt facility. I am a past chairman of the National Hydropower Association’s Hydraulic Power Committee. I joined Mavel 8 years ago as a project manager and progressed to my current position as U.S. regional sales manager.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Christian Porse: Mavel is a global leader in turbine design and manufacture, providing turbines and related equipment for both new projects and refurbishments. We are best known for providing customized and optimized solutions designed to address each project’s design objectives and constraints while optimizing the economic results. The company is 50 percent U.S. and 50 percent Czech owned.

The headquarters are located in the Czech Republic, where our engineering, design, and production are based. Our sales

22 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MAVEL.

N. Christian Porse: I have been in the energy production industry for about 48 years. Prior to joining Mavel, I was employed by a public utility located in the mid-Atlantic United States and worked with both fossil fuel and hydroelectric facilities. My hydroelectric experience involved plant maintenance, operations, safety, and environmental

Hydro Leader: Please introduce Mavel.

ADVERTISEMENT and project management operations in the Americas are based in Boston. From here, we work with customers in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Sales and project management for Europe, Africa, and Asia are managed from the headquarters in the Czech Republic. Since its founding in 1990, Mavel has signed orders for or delivered over 550 turbines at 350 sites in 45 countries. We use proven turbine technologies that include Kaplan, Francis, Pelton, and micro modular turbine designs. The Kaplan turbine, which is our specialty, was actually invented in the Czech Republic, so that design is part of our roots.

Hydro Leader: Would you tell us about the supply chain disruptions that Mavel has experienced?

N. Christian Porse: We’ve dealt with supply chain issues in many areas, particularly with raw materials, subcomponents, and transportation. The issues started with and were primarily related to the COVID‑19 pandemic. The Ukraine war has extended what I would call supply chain turbulence and has created additional uncertainty.

Hydro Leader: What issues have you seen in terms of shipping times and shipping container availability?

N. Christian Porse: Our shipping costs have increased dramatically, but shipping times less so. In shipping items from Europe to the United States, we have generally quoted a range of 6–8 weeks from leaving the port of departure to delivery to the project site, depending on the size or amount of material being delivered and the project location. Now, we estimate 10–12 weeks in some cases. I’m not aware of too many availability issues with containers, although container pricing has increased three- or fourfold. The real effect on Mavel, however, is in productivity. Everything takes longer,

A turbine being manufactured at a Mavel facility.

hydroleadermagazine.com

and our project managers need to invest significantly more time in managing a project to assure that it gets done on time. We can still deliver according to schedule, but it takes at least double the effort on the part of everyone.

Hydro Leader: What changes have you seen in the prices of raw materials?

N. Christian Porse: Metal prices in Europe and elsewhere have increased dramatically. Supply uncertainty as much as supply scarcity has driven prices up by as much as 35–150 percent for items such as steel, alloys, castings, and forgings. One of our suppliers has indicated that it is now experiencing product price increases of 5–8 percent every 4 months. That’s an increase of 25–35 percent or more on an annual basis. That kind of price volatility makes it extremely difficult for our suppliers to provide us with fixed prices for their products and for us to provide fixed price quotes to our customers. I have heard about one subcomponent supplier that is quoting prices at delivery based on material and component costs. That introduces a whole new realm of risk for us as the ultimate supplier as well as for the customer. Hydro projects are long-term projects, which means they are vulnerable to unpredictable material price fluctuations. We work with our customers to minimize these effects as much as possible.

Hydro Leader: You mentioned steel in particular. Have other materials undergone similarly dramatic changes in price?

N. Christian Porse: Some of the suppliers that we work with have indicated issues with pricing on copper, nickel, silicon steel production, and generators. Most of the items that we purchase are raw materials, including carbon steel and stainless steel.

A turbine element under construction.

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT Hydro Leader: What are you doing to manage pricing risk?

N. Christian Porse: For contracts signed before the beginning of COVID‑19, we have absorbed the cost increases, since force majeure clauses typically only allowed an extension of time. That made sense until recently, since force majeure covered events with a limited geographic reach and a limited time span. Right now, we have two events that are happening on a worldwide basis with no clear end in sight: the COVID‑19 pandemic and the ramifications of the Ukraine war. Going forward, equipment suppliers such as Mavel will not survive if they continue to have to bear the complete burden of the uncertain markets. We have been talking to our suppliers and our customers about the risks. The question is how to factor cost volatility into proposal pricing. One option is to price high, pushing most of the risk onto the customer.

Another option is to have price adjustments based on specific indices. This allows for some sharing of the risk.

The risk-sharing works for some customers, but not for others who need complete certainty about project costs. The bottom line is that we now have to approach pricing like we approach technical design: customized and optimized. We have to understand each customer and tailor an individualized commercial solution to reflect their risk profiles and constraints.

Hydro Leader: What difficulties have you faced related to getting service personnel to relevant facilities?

N. Christian Porse: Getting our personnel to sites for installation, testing, and commissioning was quite a challenge during the period of COVID‑19 travel restrictions. Typically, we provide technical supervision support for the installation of our equipment in the customer’s facility. We have always been able to get technical supervisors to the sites. But with travel restrictions in both Europe and the United States, that was not possible. We have a project manager located in California who was able to travel to our U.S. project sites and work with our folks in the Czech Republic using videoconferencing, phone, and e-mail to get the equipment successfully installed. Now that travel restrictions have been lifted, we are better able to get service personnel where and when they are needed.

Hydro Leader: Have you had to delay, postpone, or cancel any projects because of supply chain disruptions?

Hydro Leader: Have you had any customers or potential customers postpone or cancel projects because of supply chain disruptions, price increases, and so on?

24 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Hydro Leader: Have you had to look for alternate suppliers and vendors?

N. Christian Porse: We maintain high quality standards for our products, and we expect the same from suppliers. We prequalify suppliers in our supply chain to assure that they meet our quality standards, and ultimately, the standards of the end customer. It’s important that these companies are reviewed and their capabilities verified on a periodic basis. If they fail to meet our requirements, they are removed from our supply chain. Even with the current supply chain issues, we have not had to expand our group of prequalified suppliers.

Hydro Leader: How long do you expect the current supply chain disruptions to persist?

N. Christian Porse: At this point, we’re not sure that there’s any end in sight. Mavel, like most companies, is learning how to adapt to the uncertainty and turbulence in the markets. Even more than in the past, we rely on building partnerships with our customers that allow us to navigate the challenges with them and minimize the risk to both parties.

Hydro Leader: Is there anything you would like to add?

N. Christian Porse: The hydro industry is resilient. The market in the United States has seen boom times and busts.

Through it all, the industry has survived, and the companies that own and supply hydroelectric power plants have not only endured but have often prospered. This resiliency has allowed the industry to continue to grow through the turbulence of pandemic and war. In the United States, there is the promise of another boom time for hydroelectric power. The focus on climate, the rise in energy prices, the need for energy storage, and the significant financial-sector focus on renewables all provide the foundations for a new era of growth in all sectors of the hydroelectric power industry. Mavel, with its expertise in both new projects and refurbishments, is ready. H N. Christian Porse is the U.S. regional sales manager for Mavel. He can be contacted at porse@mavel.com.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAVEL.

N. Christian Porse: No. At the start of the pandemic, we had over 30 projects in the pipeline worldwide. We successfully completed almost all these projects in 2020 and 2021.

N. Christian Porse: To date, we have not seen that, but we have begun to hear indications from some customers that they are delaying capital expenditures because of high prices or uncertainty. The good news is that energy prices are rising.

That will make more projects economically viable and should, at least in part, counterbalance the uncertainty of material costs.

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Darren Lampe: How Supply Chain Disruptions Are Affecting a Small Specialty Hydro Construction Company

D.A. Lampe Construction employees at work.

D

arren Lampe is the owner of D.A. Lampe Construction, a small hydro construction company based in Chico, California, that specializes in remote, difficult-access construction and repair projects. While supply chain disruptions have led to rapid and unpredictable price increases for some raw materials and components, the fact that the company sources concrete, steel, and lumber domestically and tends to work on federal projects that are planned far in advance has helped cushion any impacts. In this interview, Mr. Lampe tells us more.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce your company.

26 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Darren Lampe: We are a small group of tradesmen and engineers based in rural northern California who work on civil infrastructure, utilities, water delivery, and industrial projects for federal, state, and local agencies and private industry. We specialize in unusual projects, often in remote locations with difficult access. We have a reputation for quality and safety, which allows us to negotiate many of our contracts.

Hydro Leader: Would you give a few examples of unusual hydro projects you have worked on?

Darren Lampe: We have completed repairs on Lennon flumes, canals, dams, and spillways throughout the northern Sierra and southern Cascade areas. They are all in mountainous regions where access is difficult. We did an intake modification for the city of San Francisco up near Yosemite. Access to the site involved a 2‑mile hike.

All our tools, equipment, and materials were flown in by helicopter. In addition to the access challenges at this site, there were significant communication challenges: there was no cell service, satellite phone service was intermittent, and the roar of the river was so loud that voice communication on site was difficult.

Hydro Leader: What kind of supply chain disruptions has your company been dealing with? hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF D.A. LAMPE CONSTRUCTION.

Darren Lampe: I went to California State University, Chico, and got a degree in construction management. After college, I went to work as an engineer for Granite Construction on the Jordanville Dam in Utah. I worked there for a while, but I really wanted to be more hands on in the field. I was advised by the structures superintendent that if I wanted to do fieldwork, I needed to be a carpenter. I left Granite, became a carpenter, and 3 years later, I started my own business. About 10 years later, I had the opportunity to do some hydro work for the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). I wound up getting a series of contracts with PG&E, and now I am in the hydro construction business.

D.A. Lampe Construction employees work on a Lennon flume.

ADVERTISEMENT Darren Lampe: Like everybody else, we started experiencing supply chain disruptions at the start of the pandemic. We saw a big jump in the prices of lumber and steel. The price of lumber went up 250 percent or more in about a year, which was difficult to deal with. We had to absorb some of that. Often, the project owners would cover most of the cost using contingency funds. Shortages seemed to be random: We weren’t able to get common items like marking paint for 2 months. Fortunately, most of our projects are Federal Energy Regulatory Commission work, so they involve a lot of detailed advance planning. All the big-ticket items, such as large pipe or multiplate arches, are purchased well in advance, so it hasn’t been a huge hit for us.

Hydro Leader: Have you seen any further supply chain disruptions since the beginning of the war in Ukraine?

Darren Lampe: No, I have not. That hasn’t been an issue for us. In fact, over the last 3 months, things have gotten better.

Supplies are more readily available, and prices are stabilizing and coming down.

Hydro Leader: Have you also seen issues with shipping?

Darren Lampe: Because most of the larger items were procured well in advance, we haven’t had shipping issues.

Personally, with my own company, we’re trying to limit the number of imports from China, so the shipping container bottleneck in the Pacific region hasn’t been an issue for us.

Hydro Leader: Are you trying to avoid sourcing things from China in response to these supply chain issues?

Darren Lampe: No, it’s more of a personal moral thing for me. I’m not a fan of China’s human rights record.

Hydro Leader: Do you anticipate any disruptions to the projects for which you’re in the planning stage?

Darren Lampe: Honestly, I don’t know. We’re planning our upcoming projects at least a year in advance, so we’re out in front of them. Most of our upcoming projects involve concrete, steel, and lumber, which are all produced domestically, so I don’t see them being affected.

Hydro Leader: How rapidly have you seen price increases occur, and have you been quoted prices for materials that are valid only for short periods of time?

Darren Lampe: We’re a seasonal firm; we don’t work much between January and April. The big surprise was last summer, when plywood jumped to well over $100 a sheet. That happened quickly, but as I said earlier, the prices have stabilized a bit. In the projects we’re about to start, I couldn’t lock in lumber prices for more than 4 days. The prices were only valid hydroleadermagazine.com

for short periods. As a result, we had to put some contingency funds into the project budget. We’ll add an extra 25 percent for those materials, and if we don’t see a corresponding price increase, we’ll give the owners a credit back.

Hydro Leader: Have you had difficulty in acquiring any subcomponents that you use?

Darren Lampe: Right now, there is a shortage of Waterstop, which we use between concrete joints. Stuff that we use regularly we generally keep in stock at the shop, but we are anticipating a little bit of difficulty getting Waterstop for our next project. We’re still waiting for the contract for that project to come through, but as soon as the contract is signed, we’ll be ordering that stuff 6 months in advance.

Hydro Leader: Have you done any other onshoring or shortening of supply chains in response to shocks in supply chains and availability issues?

Darren Lampe: In a simple sense, yes. We stocked up on basic items that we use all the time—things like marking paint, form ties, and fasteners.

Hydro Leader: Have you had to delay, postpone, or cancel any projects because of supply chain issues?

Darren Lampe: Not because of the supply chain, no.

Hydro Leader: Are you aware of any of your clients doing that on their end?

Darren Lampe: I’m not aware of that. I think the biggest challenge from the pandemic was the work-at-home orders, which slowed project planning and permitting. The regulators are having a tough time with staffing, and so are the folks who are seeking permits and doing the contracts. All of that has reduced the amount of work that is being done.

Hydro Leader: How long do you expect supply chain disruptions to persist?

Darren Lampe: As I said, the disruptions have already improved over the past few months. Honestly, because we mostly buy domestic materials, I don’t think it’s going to last too much longer. H

Darren Lampe is the owner of D.A. Lampe Construction. For more on D.A. Lampe Construction, visit www.dalampeconstruction.com.

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Paul Meeks: Confronting Supply Chain Challenges at Worthington Products

One of Worthington Products’ responses to supply chain issues has been to stockpile more materials at its headquarters.

H

ow are supply chain issues affecting manufacturers who serve the hydro industry? What are companies doing to confront supply chain shortages, transportation delays, and price increases? To get a manufacturer’s perspective, Hydro Leader spoke with Paul Meeks, the president and founder of Worthington Products.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce yourself and your company.

28 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Hydro Leader: Where do you source your materials, and where do you manufacture your products?

Paul Meeks: Our production and manufacturing partnerships are spread globally. The United States and Canada account for the bulk of production. Over the past 10 years, however, we have formed production partnerships in Brazil, France, India, Poland, Portugal, and Turkey.

Hydro Leader: When did you start to see supply chain disruptions, and what form did they initially take?

Paul Meeks: Red flags occurred early in the first quarter of 2021. We knew there were port problems, but their effects were not felt on our business until late January 2021. That hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF WORTHINGTON PRODUCTS.

Paul Meeks: I founded Worthington Products in 2000 to provide waterway barriers to hydroelectric power producers and dam owners. Our products help dam owners lower their risk and potential liability from public safety incidents by providing highly visible upstream and downstream barriers to prevent entry into dangerous zones. For hydropower producers, our barriers systems help increase power generation output by preventing the head losses associated with the blockage of intakes by debris and ice. I started doing this around 1996 as a manufacturer’s representative.

When one of the companies I represented went out of

business, I decided that it was time to form a company solely focused on waterway barriers. I never imagined then that we would grow to become the world’s best-known barrier manufacturer, with products in 64 countries.

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PHOTO BY WILFREDOR, LICENSED UNDER CC BY-SA 4.0.

Shipping times and shipping container availability are among the supply chain issues that Worthington has had to face.

is when we saw problems start. Originally, it was a logistics issue, but by the start of the second quarter, we knew we were entering a new paradigm. Port backlogs, COVID‑19 shutdowns, trucker shortages, and even the norms for container transshipments created the perfect storm. What had been a typical $6,300 charge for a 40‑foot high-cube container from port of loading to port of clearance jumped overnight and quickly became $23,000. This was made worse by container shortages and even ship shortages.

Getting a booking with a container line became a daily struggle. It was nearly impossible. In addition to higher transportation rates, we were introduced to something I’ve never seen in the ocean freight industry in my more than 26 years of experience. Freight brokers were now demanding booking surcharges as high as $5,000 to get a confirmed spot in line. That got you on the ship, sometimes, but it did not help with the congestion at the port of entry. This cascaded domestically, affecting the availability of containers to load for export, a problem that persists today. This year, we have had to schedule containers 2 months in advance for exports abroad. Before the COVID‑19 pandemic, we would have scheduled a container 4 days prior to shipment.

I’ve never experienced challenges like this. You hear talk about how we need to produce more in the United States, and I could not agree more, but the reality of the matter is that the global economy is intertwined. We lost significant manufacturing capacity in this country long ago, and there are some materials that are simply not produced domestically or for which we lack expertise.

To respond to this, Worthington held weekly supply chain meetings beginning in early 2021. We were proactive in hydroleadermagazine.com

communicating with our customer and supplier base to set expectations. We aggressively identified critical-path items and implemented plans to prevent a single critical-path item delay from affecting our promises to clients. We originally expected this to be a one-time, short-term blip caused by the emergence of COVID‑19. We were wrong. The global supply chain finished 2021 in worse shape than it had been in at the start. All manufacturers were being hit on multiple fronts.

The cascading effects of the crisis are visible in the prices and surcharges we pay, in limited quote validity, and in lead times.

The year 2022 ushered in regular increases in the prices of raw materials and finished parts. It is not uncommon to receive an updated material quote with a caveat stating, “This is not the price you will pay. We will charge the market rate on the day the product ships.” That adds uncertainty when bidding a project that is 12 months out. We do not have an office full of economists who can develop models predicting pricing 12 months from now. I suppose if there is any silver lining in this, it is the fact that all manufacturers are in the same boat. It’s how you manage these challenges that sets you apart. Worthington has been aggressive in tackling these market uncertainties early on and developing solutions to avoid disruptions to our business.

Hydro Leader: What does the term critical-path items refer to, and what are examples of those items?

Paul Meeks: For every project, we identify all the components and services that are required to bring the project to completion. We then assign a risk category—green, yellow, or red—to determine which items have the ability to make July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT a good project into a bad project. Red-category items and services are those that may require greater lead times or carry higher risk or are subject to factors outside our ability to influence. This category receives immediate and ongoing attention from project management and senior-level management. We develop strategies to move the red-category items into the yellow or green zones. Typically, that comes down to allowing extra time by ordering early. Occasionally, that may require using alternate vendors and locations. But unforeseen challenges remain. For example, when the Ever Given container ship blocked the Suez Canal last year, we had 18 containers on several ships behind the Ever Given.

In that case, all we could do was hope they got the ship dislodged and then moved the backlog through the canal as fast as possible. Beyond that, we were entirely transparent with our clients about what was taking place and how we were mitigating the challenge.

Hydro Leader: Have you also had issues with material availability?

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Paul Meeks: Not only have we increased quantities on hand, but we’ve increased the time material sits on our lot. Anyone running a small business knows that this is a recipe for cash flow challenges. Incoming inventory is cash going out the door. Eventually, this balances out, but we are acutely cognizant of the effects on cash flow. Having strong lines of credit and bankers who understand your business are important to having the flexibility to stock up.

Hydro Leader: It seems that the first round of supply chain issues was closely connected to the pandemic. Have there been further issues related to the war in Ukraine or international sanctions on Russia?

Paul Meeks: We are only a few months into Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, so the effects have been muted.

Petroleum prices spiked, and that created challenges.

Obviously, it increased transportation costs, but it also affects plastic resin, foam, and other raw materials. In this country, we have vast energy reserves. We can tackle the petroleum pricing effect. What we lack, however, is the political resolve to support our domestic energy industry, at least until there are viable alternatives. As the aggression against Ukraine continues, however, the effects will be felt, especially on the steel and raw materials sectors.

Hydro Leader: Do you plan to make any changes to your operations over the long term?

Paul Meeks: Our shift from a supply chain model to a supply net model will continue and will become a permanent feature of how we operate. We still source some components from China. In early 2020, we set a strategic imperative to get out of China. Does that mean bringing production back to our shores? Where possible, yes. But there are some items that America simply lacks the capacity, ability, or economy to produce, so we apply a global approach that also fits into our migration to a supply net model.

I believe the future is bright for those who see these not as roadblocks but rather as challenges to overcome and to grow from. There is a quote by Joshua Marine that states, “Challenges are what makes life interesting, and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” We truly believe this, and that is what makes every day at Worthington so exciting. H Paul Meeks is the president and founder of Worthington Products. He can be reached at pmeeks@tuffboom.com or (330) 452‑7400.

hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF WORTHINGTON PRODUCTS.

Paul Meeks: The availability of materials, especially steel and resin, is an ongoing concern. For companies that outsource production, the worst thing they can do right now is get in an argument with companies in their supply chain. They risk having that supplier walk away. Before the COVID‑19 pandemic, manufacturers had subsuppliers knocking down their doors for new business. Right now, suppliers are at capacity because of new business, limited labor, or cutbacks caused by reduced margins. Many are reluctant to take on new business if it is not profitable. That’s just the reality. Suppliers have more leverage than ever before, and they are not afraid to wield that newfound power.

This new reality has caused us to evaluate our supply chain model. If one link in the supply chain breaks, that puts us at risk. We are transitioning away from a supply chain model toward a supply net model. By identifying and qualifying additional supply partners, we are able to expand our supply net so that no single break in the net can harm our business.

Communication is key. We communicate early and frequently with our customers to avoid surprises. This is especially true for projects in cold-weather environments for which there is only a limited window to deliver and install the booms. I constantly reinforce the importance of communication with our team members. I tell them that if at the onset, we told the client to expect delivery on June 15, and they are standing on the loading dock looking for the big yellow Worthington truck to arrive and it does not show up, shame on us. We dropped the ball. Our customer’s trust in our word is shattered. We must let our clients know as early as possible of any actual or potential delays and, this is the important part, inform them about the steps we are taking to prevent those disruptions. Communication through the entire supply chain is crucial.

Hydro Leader: Has part of your response also been to build up extra supplies of certain items?

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Stuart Cohen of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory: Analyzing Pumped Hydro’s Role in a Stable Electricity Grid

An image from NREL’s interactive map of potential closed-loop pumped storage hydropower locations.

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he U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office is funding the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to create models for pumped hydro storage, an important tool for creating stability on the power grid. The models will enable researchers and policymakers to compare pumped hydro feasibility and cost with other energy storage technologies. Hydro Leader spoke with Stuart Cohen, a senior energy analyst at NREL, about his site and cost models, which will soon be plugged into the lab’s other energy models.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and what you do at NREL.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about NREL’s work on pumped storage hydropower. How do you view the importance of that technology?

34 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

Hydro Leader: One of the projects you’re leading involves site identification for closed-loop pumped storage. Is that something you were working on before the recent study by the Australian National University (ANU), or was it inspired by that study?

Stuart Cohen: My original motivation for seeking funding to do this detailed pumped storage resource assessment comes from my work on the Hydropower Vision study.

There was some discussion in that report of what pumped storage deployment could look like, but unfortunately, we had relatively poor data at the time for available pumped hydro resources; we just used Federal Energy Regulatory Commission applications to see where other people thought they could build sites and called that our resource base.

As an analyst, I found that unsatisfying because there were a lot of inherent data inconsistencies and a lack of spatial coverage, so I started proposing a national resource assessment for pumped storage hydropower.

This project was built off the algorithms ANU used to do the global pumped hydro energy resource assessment. The researchers at ANU ­­­­­­­ were helpful: They provided us with their code and helped us understand their algorithms and how to adapt them for the United States. We spent the last few years adapting those algorithms and doing a U.S.-focused pumped hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NREL.

Stuart Cohen: I have been at NREL for about 10 years.

My background is in mechanical engineering, but I focus on a broad range of energy systems analysis. My work is largely focused on optimization modeling of the electricity grid, primarily on the planning side, although I have also worked on operations modeling. Hydropower is one major focus, but I have also worked on things like the effects of climate change on the electricity system, energy economy interactions, and carbon policy analysis. I started working on hydropower right when I got here, running our Regional Energy Deployment System electric sector capacity expansion model for the U.S. Department of Energy Hydropower Vision study. I’ve been involved in hydropower-related projects to some extent ever since.

Stuart Cohen: At NREL, we’re in the business of doing objective analysis to understand a sustainable energy future, and so we consider all technologies and think about everything that’s on the table. We’re well known for our research on wind and solar, but hydropower and pumped storage hydropower can play a role, particularly in being a more flexible, dispatchable technology that can help integrate variable renewable energy. We do a lot of research on batteries, but we also recognize that pumped hydro is an established technology that has the potential to store energy for longer durations. We’re interested in exploring that; it’s another piece of the puzzle for a sustainable energy future.

My work is focused on developing and integrating improved data on pumped storage hydropower resources and cost. I integrate those data into our energy models so that we can see how pumped storage competes with other technologies in our least-cost optimization analysis tools.

We need to understand how it fits as we look into the future and think about how the grid could operate.

ADVERTISEMENT hydro storage resource assessment, specifically for closedloop systems. We’ve integrated more detail on the types of environmental and political exclusions that are specific to the United States, using our standard set of geospatial filters and methods of identifying reservoir locations. We are publishing this as a resource for policymakers, utilities, developers, and nongovernmental organizations.

Hydro Leader: Did any of the results surprise you?

Stuart Cohen: I wasn’t that surprised at the number of potential pumped hydro sites that we ultimately found: more than 10,000 sites in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. It makes sense that the more mountainous regions—the Rockies, the Appalachians, and the Ozarks, for instance—have lots of potential sites. At face value, 10,000 seems like a huge number, but this only represents technical and not economic deployment potential.

Many of these sites are ultimately not going to be feasible for a variety of reasons, but a company can use this model to compare sites and assess which ones might cost the least.

One of the reasons we focus on closed-loop systems is that we’re probably not going to build a lot of new dams for open-loop pumped hydropower systems in the United States for environmental reasons, but we are already thinking about lower-hanging fruit, such as using existing reservoirs.

Hydro Leader: You talked about initial cost modeling. Does that mostly involve looking at the potential cost of building a dam?

Stuart Cohen: Our initial cost modeling uses a calibrated form of the ANU cost model, which is just a spreadsheet model that includes cost functions based on things like dam head height, dam volume, and the distance between reservoirs. We’re working to build a more detailed cost model, but our initial data are based on ANU’s criteria— reservoir volume, dam volume, head height, the distance between reservoirs—plus the cost of things like the penstock and powerhouse for an assumed storage duration.

Hydro Leader: Who is your main audience for this study, and how do you plan to share your findings?

Stuart Cohen: We have already talked to several stakeholders in the electricity sector. Users of the data include utilities that are considering energy storage as an important part of their future portfolio, developers, and even equipment manufacturers interested in places they might consider exploring for pumped hydro. We’d also like to reach policymakers who are interested in energy storage and the potential of adding flexibility to the electricity system.

Researchers and academics will want to explore the results as well. I think it’s important for a wide range of parties to look at the data and think about what makes sense. Their hydroleadermagazine.com

To view more information about NREL’s work on closed-loop pumped storage hydropower supply curves, including an interactive map and a new report entitled Advanced Hydropower and PSH Capacity Expansion Modeling, visit www.nrel.gov/gis/psh-supply-curves.html. feedback will help make our data better. We’re already talking to folks and looking at some of the current proposals for new pumped storage, comparing the findings of our algorithm to the sites that are being proposed. At Xcel’s Unaweep site in Colorado, for example, we find reservoirs in the same general vicinity, and it is pretty encouraging to me to see that validation.

Hydro Leader: Does this model enable users to compare pumped hydro storage with other energy storage solutions?

Stuart Cohen: Yes. When we use the pumped hydro data in our electric sector models, pumped storage hydropower is competing directly with other energy storage technologies.

I think it’s hard to compete with batteries for shorterduration storage, which is why we’re interested in exploring longer-duration options with pumped hydro. A key NREL product that will use the pumped hydro data is the Annual Technology Baseline (ATB), which is a dataset of technology costs and performance information for things like wind, solar, and geothermal. We’ve now expanded it to include energy storage technologies, and when the 2022 version is released, it will include the information from this pumped storage resource assessment. Accompanying the ATB, we do an annual standard scenarios report that compares different visions of the future for the electricity sector under a broad range of energy costs, policies, and fossil fuel costs. Having these updated data is an important step in seeing how pumped hydro competes against batteries and other technologies. It allows researchers and policymakers to think about which future they’re most interested in. It’s not our role to say that any one solution is better or more probable than the others. We’re putting the information out there to inform better decisions. H Stuart Cohen is a senior energy analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He can be contacted at stuart.cohen@nrel.gov.

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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What You Should Know About the National Hydropower Association’s Clean Currents 2022 Conference

A roundtable-style session at Clean Currents 2021.

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he National Hydropower Association (NHA) will be holding its industrywide Clean Currents 2022 trade show and conference the week of October 17 in Sacramento, California. Marla Barnes, NHA’s vice president of membership and industry engagement, gives us a preview of what makes this event, run by the industry, for the industry, unique and valuable.

Hydro Leader: Please introduce NHA. Marla Barnes: NHA is the national trade association in the United States that focuses on championing waterpower in all its forms. We have three main missions. First, we advocate for the waterpower resource with Congress, policymakers, and wholesale electricity market designers, pushing to get tax credits, stronger certainty in licensing, inclusion in wholesale electricity market design, and so on. Second, we connect employees of our more than 280 member organizations with other waterpower professionals to create forums for learning from each other, doing business together, and networking.

The national and regional events we offer are one important way we do that. Third, we inform not only our member organizations, but the industry at large on both policy and technical developments, helping them understand why these developments matter to them and their work. We do that not only through our online POWERHOUSE media platform but through our entire NHA committee and council structure.

Marla Barnes: Several years ago, the NHA board of directors decided it was crucial that we hold our own conference and tradeshow, allowing the industry to control

36 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022

the format and content and enabling 100 percent of the revenue to be reinvested into industry advocacy, rather than going to a for-profit private events company. There are lots of conferences and trade shows out there, but there are two things that make Clean Currents unique. First, it’s for the industry, by the industry. It’s not run by a private company; rather, it’s organized with extensive input from NHA member organizations, exhibiting companies, and others.

The industry as a whole provides ideas about content, the most useful and productive setup for the exhibit hall, and speakers and activities. Second, Clean Currents provides an opportunity to raise funds for the work of NHA. The board recognized that to do the work that it was asking the association to do to move waterpower forward, there needed to be more available capital. Those additional funds can’t always be raised by increasing membership dues. We saw in the new event an opportunity to create nondues revenue that would go right back into the association. If a company is going to participate in an event, it makes sense to choose an event at which that investment goes straight into the work of advocating for the industry.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the format and size of this year’s Clean Currents, and how it compares to last year’s inaugural event.

Marla Barnes: One unique characteristic of Clean Currents is that instead of having a traditional exhibit hall and then holding conference sessions in a completely different part of the building, it has a integrated community feel. In some conferences, people leave the exhibit hall, go to the sessions, and sometimes never get back to the exhibit hall. To avoid that, we replaced the exhibit hall with a central location where everything happens, which we call CC Central. hydroleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NHA.

Hydro Leader: Please tell us about NHA’s Clean Currents conference and what makes it distinctive among other industry conferences and events.

The Innovation Power House at Clean Currents 2021.

ADVERTISEMENT CC Central includes both the exhibits and the areas for content. The purpose-built session areas surround the exhibits. Right in the middle of CC Central is an area called the Innovation Power House. We’re trying to get people to think creatively about technology and applications from other industries—for instance, advanced manufacturing, robotics, and artificial intelligence—that have the potential for adaptation by the waterpower industry. There are many technologies out there that could create phenomenal efficiencies and cost savings for this industry.

Once attendees enter CC Central, they can do anything they want. All attendees have access to everything: lunches, conference content, and so on. The integrated space also creates the opportunity for people to pick and choose the things they want to participate in and to do so in a timeefficient way. We tried that approach at the inaugural event in Atlanta, and the attendees responded favorably. There are certain logistical challenges to holding conference sessions in the same space as the exhibits, and we’re learning to address those based on the experience of the inaugural conference.

Hydro Leader: Does the conference this year focus on specific themes? If so, how did you generate those ideas?

Marla Barnes: We have a robust content development committee made up of about 50 industry professionals, including asset owners, service and product suppliers, project developers, technology developers, regulators, and employees of government agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

In the course of their everyday work, these people see and hear the issues and topics that people are struggling with or that people need more information about. This drives the content of the event.

The other thing that is unique about Clean Currents is that instead of organizing the session rooms by tracks of content, they are organized by learning format. We all don’t learn the same way, so we offer a variety of formats. For example, we have an area called the roundtable dialogue room, in which there are no formally designated speakers.

There is a facilitator who leads an informal discussion with the attendees about a particular topic, such as the supply chain challenges caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic and high gas prices. We also have more traditional formats, such as classroom presentations.

Another useful format is the meet and greet, which we hold in the Innovation Power House. It’s an informal setup: Attendees stand around a presenter, who is standing next to a kiosk. The presenter is basically interacting with attendees via short snippets of content. The six host utilities of this year’s Clean Currents will be presenting in that area, specifically by sharing their investing plans for the next 5 years. For example, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is planning to do modernization, rehab, dam safety work, environmental enhancement, and a variety of other projects. Clean Currents is the only event I know of offering this valuable insight hydroleadermagazine.com

from asset owners. Leaders at the utility will share an overview of its investment plan, and the team of people who will be working on those projects, including procurement, engineering, or environmental issues, will be there, too.

Hydro Leader: What kind of audiences do you expect at Clean Currents, and how do you develop content for them?

Marla Barnes: In addition to the content development committee and an exhibitor advisory committee, we have an overall steering committee made up of individuals from NHA member organizations. That group guides us on the content that various types of professionals in the industry are looking for. For example, a CEO or executive is looking for something different than an engineer. It’s a little flippant to say we’re trying to do something for everybody, but we are trying to be thoughtful about the learning needs of specific segments of the sector. One of those audiences, of course, is the decisionmakers, whether at the executive level, the engineering level, or the plant operations level. The more we learn about their needs, the better we can make sure that the Clean Currents event fills those needs and thus attracts those decisionmakers. At last year’s Clean Currents event, 39 percent of all attendees were leaders, decisionmakers, or influencers within their organizations. We expect that same kind of audience this year.

Hydro Leader: What should every hydro industry professional know about this event?

Marla Barnes: The commitment that we’re seeing to this event from the six host utilities—the Bureau of Reclamation, the California Department of Water Resources, Northern California Power Agency, PG&E, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and Yuba Water Agency—is really remarkable. Together, they own a significant portion of the hydropower in California. In the general session on the morning of Thursday, October 20, executives from each of the host utilities will be sharing their views about the future, their challenges, and the opportunities they see. By coming to Clean Currents, whether as an attendee, an exhibitor, a sponsor, or a speaker, you’re going to have an opportunity to learn about the future and where we as an industry can fit into the drive to a clean energy grid. Hydro has a great future, and it’s a great industry to be working in, especially if you’re just starting your career.

We hope that the enthusiasm about the importance of the industry and the sector will really grow in Sacramento.

We encourage people to come and be a part of it. H Marla Barnes is the vice president of membership and industry engagement at the National Hydropower Association.

She can be contacted at marla@hydro.org or (816) 588‑4639.

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JOB LISTINGS

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Does your organization have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages? Hydro Leader provides this service to irrigation districts, water agencies, and hydropower facilities free of charge. For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com. of dams and levees for society. In the furtherance of these objectives, multiple positions within this industry sector are posted on the USSD’s website.

Apply: https://www.ussdams.org/resource-center/job-postings/ PROGRAM MANAGER (TWO POSITIONS AVAILABLE) Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Washington, DC Deadline: Until Filled Summary: The NHA is a nonprofit national association dedicated exclusively to preserving and expanding clean, renewable, affordable hydropower and marine energy.

NHA is hiring a Program Manager to support several NHA Committees and Councils to enhance the organization’s ability to advocate to preserve, enhance, and expand the use of waterpower generation, and to inform members about timely policy and technical developments, and connect members with other waterpower professionals.

Apply: https://careers.hydro.org/jobs

MULTIPLE HYDROPOWER SECTOR OPPORTUNITIES Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Throughout the United States Summary: The NHA is a nonprofit national association dedicated exclusively to preserving and expanding clean, renewable, affordable hydropower and marine energy.

As part of its mission the association maintains a career page featuring opportunities that are available among its members as well as throughout the hydropower sector.

Apply: https://careers.hydro.org/jobs/

UNITED STATES SOCIETY ON DAMS MULTIPLE DAM AND LEVEE INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITIES Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Throughout the United States Summary: The USSD envisions a world in which all dams and levees are safe and valued by the communities they serve, and the organization embraces a mission of empowering professionals to advance sustainable benefits

SENIOR PROJECT DESIGNER - PRECAST Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Salt Lake City, UT Deadline: Until filled Summary: Support manufacturing operations with equipment alterations and new equipment and/or improvement designs from inception through startup; operating in accordance with city, state, and federal regulations.

Apply: https://www.nwpipe.com/careers/

FIELD SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE II Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Tracy, CA Deadline: Until Filled Summary: Acts as filed liaison between Company, Contractor, Field Inspector and trucking companies, observing and recording issues that affect the delivery of Northwest Pipe products using Track.net and other resources.

Apply: http://www.nwpipe.com/careers

PLANT OPERATIONS MANAGER Salary: Dependent upon qualifications Location: Tracy, CA Deadline: Until Filled Summary: Directs production, distribution, and marketing operations for the Tracy Facility. Coordinates and directs the design, planning, construction, maintenance, and alteration of equipment, machinery, building, and other facilities by performing the following duties personally or through subordinate supervisors.

Apply: http://www.nwpipe.com/careers

FOR ADDITIONAL HYDRO-RELATED CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, VISIT: National Hydropower Association careers page: https://www.hydro.org/careers/ United States Society on Dams job listings page at: https://www.ussdams.org/resource-center/job-postings/ hydroleadermagazine.com

July/August 2022 | HYDRO LEADER

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Upcoming Events

July 11–13 North Dakota Water Resource Districts Association and North Dakota Water Education Foundation, Joint Summer Water Meeting and Executive Briefing, Fargo, ND July 12–14 Hydrovision International, Denver, CO July 25–27 National Water Resources Association, Western Water Seminar, Fairmont, MT August 15 National Hydropower Association, Alaska Regional Meeting, Ketchikan, AK August 23–24 Colorado Water Congress, Summer Conference, Steamboat, CO September 13–15 Northwest Hydroelectric Association, Fall Regional Workshop, Tacoma, WA September 16 Agribusiness and Water Council of Arizona, Annual Meeting and Water Conference, Tempe, AZ September 18–21 American Public Power Association, Business and Financial Conference, Savannah, GA September 19–22 Nevada Water Resources Association, Fall Week of Water, Reno, NV September 26–29 National Rural Water Association, WaterPro Conference, National Harbor, MD October 3–7 American Public Power Association, Fall Education Institute, San Antonio, TX October 4–5 CEATI International, Distribution Conference, Indian Wells, CA October 4–5 Oregon Water Resources Congress, Annual Elmer G. McDaniels Memorial Golf Tournament and Technical Seminar, Bend, OR October 4–6 U.S. Society on Dams, 2021 Fall Workshop Series, Denver, CO October 5–7 Texas Water Conservation Association, Fall Conference, San Antonio, TX October 9–12 Edison Electric Institute, Transmission, Distribution, Metering, and Mutual Assistance Conference, Bellevue, WA October 18 Utah Water Users Association, Utah Water Summit, Layton, UT October 18–19 CEATI International, Asset Management Conference, Seattle, WA October 18–20 National Hydropower Association, Clean Currents, Sacramento, CA October 28 Agribusiness and Water Council of Arizona, H2Open Golf Tournament, Casa Grande, AZ

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