The Celilo Converter Station, built in 1970 and owned and operated by the

Bonneville Power Administration The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to constr ...

, is the northern terminus of the

Pacific DC Intertie The Pacific DC Intertie (also called Path 65) is an electric power transmission line that transmits electricity from the Pacific Northwest to the Los Angeles area using HVDC, high voltage direct current (HVDC). The line capacity is 3.1 gigawatt ...

, near

The Dalles The Dalles is the largest city of Wasco County, Oregon, United States. The population was 16,010 at the 2020 census, and it is the largest city on the Oregon side of the Columbia River between the Portland Metropolitan Area, and Hermiston ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

History

The Celilo Converter Station was originally configured with six groups of six-pulse

mercury arc valve A mercury-arc valve or mercury-vapor rectifier or (UK) mercury-arc rectifier is a type of electrical rectifier used for converting high-voltage or high-current alternating current (AC) into direct current (DC). It is a type of cold cathode gas-fil ...

s with a blocking

voltage Voltage, also known as electric pressure, electric tension, or (electric) potential difference, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a static electric field, it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to m ...

of 133 kV each (for a total of ±400 kV) and a maximum

current Currents, Current or The Current may refer to: Science and technology * Current (fluid), the flow of a liquid or a gas ** Air current, a flow of air ** Ocean current, a current in the ocean *** Rip current, a kind of water current ** Current (stre ...

of 2,000

ampere The ampere (, ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp,SI supports only the use of symbols and deprecates the use of abbreviations for units. is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to elect ...

s. ;1985: Two six-pulse valve groups of

thyristor A thyristor () is a solid-state semiconductor device with four layers of alternating P- and N-type materials used for high-power applications. It acts exclusively as a bistable switch (or a latch), conducting when the gate receives a current ...

s were added in 1985, to increase the voltage to 500 kV per pole for a total differential voltage of 1,000 kV. ; 1989: Two new 1,100 ampere, 500 kV

converters were added, in 1989,

in parallel Two-terminal components and electrical networks can be connected in series or parallel. The resulting electrical network will have two terminals, and itself can participate in a series or parallel topology. Whether a two-terminal "object" is an ...

with the two existing converters, giving a total transmission power of 3,100 Megawatts (3,100 A at ±500 kV). : For this extension a new converter hall was built at the southern side of the station at . ; September 2001:

Security Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...

concerns in the aftermath of the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

on the U.S. led to the Celilo Converter Station closing to the

general public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

. It previously had included informative displays describing the history of DC

transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission *** ...

and the Pacific Intertie. ; 2004: The

groups were all replaced in 2004 with light-triggered

groups, to eliminate the environmental risks of

mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

and to reduce the

maintenance Maintenance may refer to: Biological science * Maintenance of an organism * Maintenance respiration Non-technical maintenance * Alimony, also called ''maintenance'' in British English * Champerty and maintenance, two related legal doctrine ...

costs of the obsolete mercury arc valves. ; 2016: The new Celilo Converter Station went into service in January 2016 after the entire terminal had been replaced with a new two-converter terminal rated ±560 kV 3410 A (3800 MW), while the Oregon section of the transmission line was upgraded to ±520 kV and 3,220 MW.

Related structures

There was also a DC test facility for testing

high voltage High voltage electricity refers to electrical potential large enough to cause injury or damage. In certain industries, ''high voltage'' refers to voltage above a certain threshold. Equipment and conductors that carry high voltage warrant spec ...

equipment nearby (now abandoned, soon to be demolished). At the end of the 1960s, a test transmission line for 1,333 kV was erected at . The facility was built to test the high voltage DC equipment intended for a planned connection between Celilo Converter Station and

Hoover Dam Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Se ...

that never was built.

References

External links

* * * {{coord, 45.5938, -121.1125, type:landmark_region:US-OR, display=title Western Interconnection Columbia River Gorge Energy infrastructure in Oregon Converter stations Buildings and structures in The Dalles, Oregon Energy infrastructure completed in 1970 1970 establishments in Oregon

History

Related structures

See also

References

External links