22 Feb 2008
My job at McMurdo is to operate the station power plants. We have two plants now, a 4.8MW plant powered by six Caterpillar D399s, and a 2.9MW backup plant powered by two Caterpillar 3516s. The old plant has been running for about 20 years and will be torn apart and rebuilt starting next austral summer. After years of delays the backup plant was just commisioned a month ago. I took all of the following photos, and I release them to the public domain.




Me with one of the D399s in the old plant. Each of these gensets can produce about 700kW continuously, and they'll put out 800kW-900kW for a little while before overheating. All of our engines are slightly derated due to the low-temperature-tolerant fuel we use. The waste heat from the generators is used to heat several buildings on station.


The six D399s. We usually run three of them at any one time, and the others are either in standby or under repair. These are old and tough engines, but they're not very efficient and it's getting difficult to procure parts for them. They'll be replaced over the next few years with two 3516s and two 3512s.


The control room in the old plant. Sitting at left is Kevin, one of the winter operators, sitting where I spent a good part of my six months down here.


Me with one of the backup plant 3516s. The 3516s aren't much bigger than the D399s and have roughly the same displacement, but they produce about 1450kW apiece vs 800-900kW for the D399s. This is due mostly to higher compression, an 1800rpm rated speed as opposed to 1200rpm for the D399s, and a modernized fuel distribution system.


The two 3516s. The station will get most of its power from these gensets while the old plant is disabled and upgraded. We'll get the rest of the power from mobile generators.


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