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W R I E R E N E R G Y L l f E RIVERSIDE PUBLIC UTILITIES Board Memorandum P U B L I C U T I L i T I E 5 BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITIES DATE: February 19, 2010 ITEM NO: 9 SUBJECT: PROCUREMENT OF EQUIPMENT FOR THE VARIABLE FREQUENCY DRIVE (VFD) RETROFIT PROJECT — WORK ORDER NOS. 1018564, 1018566, 1018567 and 1018568 ISSUE: Consideration of the capital expenditure of $199,930 and award of a contract for the procurement of equipment for the VFD Retrofit Project. RECOMMENDATIONS: That the Board of Public Utilities: 1. Approve the capital expenditure of$44,840 for Work Order No. 1018564(Cooley J Well), $50,960 for Work Order No. 1018566 (Scheuer Well), $31,870 for Work Order No. 1018567 (Raub 7 Well) and$72,260 for Work Order No. 1018568 (Garner 6 Well)which includes all procurement, design, construction, and contingencies for the Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) Retrofit Project; and 2. Award a contract for the purchase of four VFD systems to Brithnee Electric (Brithnee) of Colton, California, in an amount not-to-exceed $147,811. BACKGROUND: This request is to retrofit four well sites with Variable Frequency Drives in order to reduce the impacts of demolishing and rebuilding Evans Reservoir over the next two years. On any given day, the production of water is about equal to the daily consumption of water. However, throughout the day production is steady, whereas consumption fluctuates. Normally, the differences between supply and demand is buffered by the two 16 million gallon (MG) reservoirs at the Linden/Evans complex. When consumption is low, the reservoirs fill and when consumption rises, the reservoirs drain. One of the 16 MG reservoirs, Evans Reservoir, is now out of service and will be replaced over the next two years. Without Evans Reservoir, the Linden/Evans complex has limited buffering ability. If nothing is done, the City of Riverside (City) may experience a greater number of high water level events leading to overflowing reservoirs and/or low water events leading to low water pressure complaints. These events often require substantial overtime usage by Water Operators as they respond to the various alarms. This limited buffering capability caused by the loss of Evans Reservoir can be mitigated, in part, by retrofitting the motors on some of our larger wells with Variable Frequency Drives (VFD). These drives can increase or decrease the speed of the well motors, thereby, modulating the amount of water the wells produce. By installing the VFDs and controlling them, staff can match supply and demand more closely reducing the need for reservoir buffering and reducing the number of high or low water events.