POWER September 2020 - 18

FOCUS ON O&M
pumped into the ground. To heat buildings,
thermal energy will be transferred
back into the geothermal fluid as it travels
through the borefield.
Each 500-foot borehole contains 1,000
2. The piping loop, after being placed in the
ground, was surrounded with thermally enhanced
grout. Courtesy: PPI
HDPE pipe is often specified for this
type of project because of its proven durability.
Those attributes were called on
for this extreme endeavor and it was a
pleasure to honor it with the PPI Project
of the Year award. "
How the System Works
Vertical piping loops are connected to
larger diameter headers that run horizontally
through the pipe field. Heat
exchange fluid enters the HDPE pipe
at one end of the vertical loop, travels
to the bottom of the pipe where there
is a U-bend, then heads back up to the
surface. Within this closed-loop system,
heat is exchanged with the earth, and
no fluid leaves the system. The pipe
loop, or ground-coupled heat exchanger,
is the thermal energy source during
heating cycles and the thermal sink during
cooling cycles.
Geothermal fluid transfers from the
borefield to the central energy plant,
which exchanges heat with a district
energy system that will ring the terminal
with a network of heavy-duty, 10- to
24-inch-diameter HDPE pipes. Mooney
said at the Vancouver airport, because
of the mild West Coast climate, most of
the time heat will be drawn from airport
buildings, extracted through heat pumps
in the Central Utilities Building, and
feet of 1.25-inch PE4710 HDPE pipe (Figure
3). These pipes link to lateral headers
that carry the fluid to the Central Utilities
Building. The headers feed into manifolds
that tie into heat pumps, which distribute
the geothermal energy to and from
airport buildings. Ground Source Energy
used 16,800 feet of HDPE header pipes
to complete the geoexchange system.
" There's pipe everywhere, " said Mooney.
According to PPI, PE4710 is the highest
performance classification of HDPE
piping material for fluid applications.
PE4710 compounds offer a high level of
performance with increased flow capacities
plus increased resistance to surge
pressure, fatigue, and slow crack growth.
" All the parties involved were grateful
to have completed this large-scale commercial
project ahead of schedule, " said
MacNevin. " Drilling was a team effort,
with three companies collaborating to
achieve success. Given the high-profile
nature of the Vancouver International Airport
geothermal exchange system, the
drilling firms were under 24/7 oversight
by Ground Source Energy to ensure all
boreholes were drilled to target depth and
pipes were subjected to post-installation
pressure testing to ensure integrity. "
He continued: " The expected performance
of the Vancouver International
Airport Central Utilities Building geoexchange
system will certainly show how
plastic pipe can be part of the sustainable
solutions to save our planet. This
has to be good news to all of us. "
-Steve Cooper is with the Plastics Pipe
Institute (PPI), the major North American
trade association representing all segments
of the plastic pipe industry.
Utilities Forecasting with
AMI Amid COVID-19
3. Each of the boreholes at Vancouver International
Airport contains 1,000 feet of
1.25-inch PE4710 high-density polyethylene
(HDPE) pipe. Courtesy: PPI
18
COVID-19 has caused a dramatic shift in
the consumption of electricity across the
U.S. Stay-at-home mandates have forced
millions of businesses to close or shutter
their offices and storefronts, dramatically
reducing the consumption of commercial
electrical power.
The millions of people who typically
commute to work are mostly working
remotely and consuming more power at
their homes than they would otherwise.
Though mandates have started to lift, the
continuing pandemic carries serious imwww.powermag.com
plications
for electric utilities.
Historically, utility providers have
tracked both residential and commercial
electrical power consumption in seasonal
or monthly increments. However,
the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that
utilities need to have a more granular and
real-time understanding of power usage
to forecast consumption accurately during
unexpected events. Enter advanced
metering infrastructure (AMI).
Utilities have historically taken advantage
of several disparate, often one-way data
streams to inform data-driven decisions.
By taking economic data, load data, and
weather patterns into consideration, utilities
can predict power consumption and shortages,
as well as adverse events caused by
natural disasters. While natural disasters
and economic downturns can be predicted
by closely monitoring weather and economic
data, it's nearly impossible to plan for
black swan events like COVID-19.
The pandemic is hastening the adoption
of cloud services for utilities (Figure
4). With essential businesses, including
electricity providers, forced to manage
some operations remotely, many are
shifting to cloud-based solutions. Even
before COVID-19 hit the U.S., the electricity
industry was starting to adopt the
cloud, and the pandemic has helped
demonstrate to utilities that leveraging
cloud capabilities and allowing staff to
work remotely provides many benefits,
and does not jeopardize security.
Adopting advanced applications by
necessity because of the pandemic has
allowed utilities to experience broader
benefits as well, enabling them to monitor
and analyze deep insights on power
usage and production data remotely to
comply with stay-at-home mandates.
AMI-Enabled Utility Operations
Electrical utilities can leverage AMI data
to monitor power usage by using smart
meters to report consumption in near real
time. This data in the past has been collected
on annual, seasonal, or monthly
increments, allowing utilities to slowly analyze
power consumption over time and
identify seasonal trends in electricity usage.
For example, by analyzing monthly or
seasonal consumption snapshots, utilities
were able to assess whether and when
a household turns on its heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning (HVAC) system
in the summer and winter. This helps utilities
predict demand and consumption levels
at various points of the year, enabling
adjustments in production to meet consumer
demand-but only after the fact.
POWER | September 2020
http://www.powermag.com
POWER September 2020

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