Take Me to the River* - Hydro Power in New Hampshire – Part 2: Touring the PSNH Hydro Operations

In my last post, Down by the Water, I noted that my office looks onto the Merrimack River and the upstream Amoskeag dam and the hydroelectricity power plant that has been in operation for ninety years. In this post, I take a closer look at this power plant, which I had an opportunity to tour, as well as its sister upstream plants in Hooksett and at Garvin Falls. 

In the process of learning more about the operation of the Amoskeag Dam and the hydro plant, I was fortunate enough to be given a tour of the operations by the experienced hydro team at PSNH. The photographs below were taken during this tour. My tour of the facility was fascinating. I got a great view of the dam from the powerhouse side and was able to view the power plant from the inside.

The power plant is home to three 1920s vintage turbine and generator sets, which continue to work perfectly today and are so well designed and maintained that replacement is not warranted. As an engineer, I was very impressed to see these 90+-year old units still operating and generating electricity. The hydro industry is rather unique in the electricity generation business, in that many of the operations rely on old, well-designed equipment, which, in some cases, are 100 years old. This is a testament to past engineers who designed these units without the use of calculators, spreadsheets, or computer-aided design and drawing tools.

Photo: PSNH Flckr Photostream

The Amoskeag Power Plant has a long history. The project was started by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, the textile manufacturing company established on the banks of the Merrimack River and which led to the founding of Manchester. The Amoskeag Mill was at one time the largest cotton textile plant in the world. At its peak, the mill was powered by thirty water turbines, twelve steam engines, and five steam turbines.  In 1918, a decision was made to completely dam the Merrimack at the Amoskeag Falls and to install a hydroelectric generating station. This was placed into operation in 1924.

During my research I was excited to uncover the photograph below from the PSNH Shoebox website, which is a collection of old PSNH-related photographs. This  shows one of the turbines being readied for installation in the Amoskeag powerhouse in the 1920s. It is still in operation today.

Photo: PSNH Shoebox

After World War I, business became difficult for the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company because the US was in recession. Furthermore, the proliferation of electrical generating operations throughout the US, and especially down south, meant that cotton did not need to be transported north to be milled and woven. High costs, aging equipment, and labor unrest eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company and the sale of the hydro operations to PSNH in 1936.

The Amoskeag Dam spans the Merrimack River so that the river flow can be harnessed and fed through the three turbines at the Amoskeag Powerhouse (see photograph below). The average annual river flow is some 4000 cubic feet per second (cu. ft/sec) (equivalent to 1.8 million gallons per hour). At full power, the maximum combined water flow through the turbines is 5000 cu. ft/sec. This means during average river flows of 4000 cu. ft/sec, all the water, except for a 280 cu. ft/sec habitat bypass,  is directed through the turbines and there is no overflow over the top of the dam. My photographs of the water overtopping of the Amoskeag Dam were taken during the tour. Because the river flow that day was very low (~ 2000 cu. ft/sec), I was surprised to see overtopping. It turned out that the Amoskeag power house was down for maintenance because the transformers were being replaced so there was no river flow going through turbines and the full river flow, except for the bypass, was consequently all spilling over the top of the dam.

Photo: PSNH Flckr Photostream 

I was also fortunate to be taken down to the lower levels of the powerhouse, where I walked to the other side of the dam through a service tunnel inside the dam wall that runs along its entire length. On emerging on the other side, I got a closer look at the inflatable gate that is used to control the height of the water in the dam.

Photo: PSNH Flckr Photostream

The Amoskeag dam is just one of three hydro plants operated by PSNH on a fairly short stretch of the Merrimack river, so I decided to take myself to the river* and drive upstream to visit the other two. About 7 miles above the Amoskeag dam, there is a small single turbine 1.6 MW hydro plant on the Hooksett dam;  a further 5 miles upstream is the much larger Garvin Falls Dam, which hosts four turbines in two powerhouses which have a combined capacity of 12.1 MW. The PSNH Merrimack coal-fired power plant, which uses the Merrimack River as a cooling water source, lies between these two dams. It is clear that, even today, the mighty Merrimack has an enormously important role to play in energy generation in New Hampshire. Below are some photographs from my upstream excursion.

Much of this post has been touristy in nature with descriptions of power plants, tours and lots of pictures but in the next post I will dig deeper into the technical information, such as river flows and electricity generation, associated with these hydro operations. My visits and research for these posts has given me a better understanding of the operation and importance of these hydroelectric facilities as well as a much better appreciation for the engineering design and construction skills of those old time engineers.

Until next time, remember to turn off the lights when you leave the room.

Mike Mooiman

Franklin Pierce University

mooimanm@franklinpierce.edu

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(*Take Me to the River – The fabulous and heavily covered Al Green tune. The definitive cover is by the Talking Heads. Here it is from one the best concert movies ever made – “Stop Making Sense”. Turn up the volume and enjoy Take Me to River.)