Carbon County Commissioner Sue Jones wasn’t so sure that Rocky Mountain Power could pull a nearly 700,000-pound transformer across the Ekola Bridge over the Medicine Bow River in central Wyoming.
The June 29 haul of the giant specialized transformer trailer was the first of seven Lego-like parts that PacifiCorp is assembling at its critical Aeolus Substation at the end of Carbon County Road 121 northeast of Medicine Bow.
It’s miles from anywhere.
CCR 121 is a dusty 10-mile-long road that snakes through wind farms owned by Rocky Mountain Power’s parent company PacifiCorp, a electric utility owned by billionaire Warren Buffet that has contiguous service territories scattered throughout the Pacific Northwest.
The utility has two significant wind farms in the substation area that generate a total of 753 megawatts of electricity over an area that spans 70 square miles: TB Flats I and II and Ekola Flats.
There are others, but those are the big ones.
The chair of the Carbon County Board of Commissioners had utility representatives acknowledge in a letter with local officials that Rocky Mountain Power would fix the bridge just in case it collapsed into the river.
“We just told them that they can cross the bridge, but if they it tear up and caves in, then they have to replace it,” Jones told Cowboy State Daily. “There was a little bit of trouble moving the first one. It took forever.”
Jones anticipated a worst-case scenario.
She videotaped the crossing of the first transformer load and posted it to Facebook in late June.
And others along Interstate 80 between Laramie and Arlington have noticed as the transformers have inched their way to the substation site at less than 10 mph.
But the trip couldn’t have been slower than the one that the transformers traversed from the high-voltage manufacturer in Turkey.
“These things are so big and expensive that no one keeps them on their shelves,” said PacifiCorp spokesman David Eskelsen. “They can take a couple of years to get delivered.”
The maker of the transformers is Balikesir Elektromekanik Sanayi Tesisleri A.S., or BEST, as it is known throughout the world.
They arrived in Wyoming by way of container ship that sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, and unloaded in the Port of Houston before they were moved by train to the Laramie rail yard near Lyons Street on the northern edge of downtown Laramie.
Center Of The Road
This is where specialized haulers Omega Morgan, based in Hillsboro, Oregon, enter the picture.
Since late June, the hauler has moved three of the 670,000-pound transformers onto its 500-ton suspension trailers. The transformers are so heavy because they are filled with tightly wound coils of copper and vessels of mineral oil.
The specialized hauling equipment is made up of an 1,000-horsepower truck in the front to pull the load and has connected three — and sometimes six — trucks with steel bars in the rear to push the massive vehicle that moves roughly 5-10 mph and gets a half-mile to a gallon of diesel fuel, said Shane Wilhelm, Omega Morgan’s operations manager for specialized transportation.
“With the transformers, trailers and trucks we’re talking about 1.5 million pounds in total weight,” Wilhelm told Cowboy State Daily. “When you carry this much weight, you don’t want to bounce everything by going 20-25 mph.”
The specialized trucks are burning 300-400 gallons of diesel a day during the haul. This is a combined consumption for all six trucks.
Omega Morgan expects to complete moving all seven of the transformers by mid-September, he said.
Each transformer takes up to three days to travel 90 miles over a labyrinth of roads from Lyons Street in Laramie, where they’re being offloaded from the trains. The transformers then move along Wyoming Highway 230 (Rivers Road) south to Wyoming 130 (Snowy Range Road), and then Wyoming 12 (Herrick Lane).
The trailer with the transformer then pulls onto Interstate 80 in the westbound lane and travels about 20 miles before exiting onto Arlington Road before heading north to the Aeolus substation.
The first exit off the I-80 for the monster-sized vehicle is at Arlington, but the trailer and transformer head north onto state Highway 13, then north again along U.S. Route 30 (Lincoln Highway), which merges into U.S. 287 through Medicine Bow, where the century-old Virginian Hotel is located.
The last leg of this arduous journey is the turn right onto the rebuilt Carbon County Road 121 and go 10 miles to the substation.
“It’s a tough drive for the drivers,” said Wilhelm, adding that some of them are verbally abused for their slow movement of a vehicle that’s 25-feet wide and 380 feet long.
Ekola Bridge typically doesn’t get that much attention.
But with something this big, Jones wanted to make sure the bridge didn't collapse. This is why she filmed it for her Facebook post. It's literally the last crossing before arriving at the substation.
Without the bridge that Rocky Mountain Power built along Carbon County Road 121 northeast of Medicine Bow, PacifiCorp couldn’t complete what will be the largest substation project in PacifiCorp’s electrical grid system.
The 375-foot-long specialized heavy truck and trailer carrying a transformer for installation at PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation, stops just in front of the substation before it is unloaded. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
The 375-foot-long specialized heavy truck and trailer carrying a transformer for installation at PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation, stops just in front of the substation before it is unloaded. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
The 375-foot-long specialized heavy truck and trailer carrying a transformer for installation at PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation, stops just in front of the substation before it is unloaded. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
One of the six 1,000-horsepower trucks used to pull and push a 1.5 million-pound trailer carrying a transformer to PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
A transformer built in Turkey was sent via container ship to the Port of Houston, then shipped by rail to Laramie, Wyoming, for eventual installation at PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation north of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Above, the transformer sits in the rail yards of Laramie, waiting to be moved 90 miles to the north. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
A transformer built in Turkey was sent via container ship to the Port of Houston, then shipped by rail to Laramie, Wyoming, for eventual installation at PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation north of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Above, the transformer sits in the rail yards of Laramie, waiting to be moved 90 miles to the north. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
One of the six 1,000-horsepower trucks used to pull and push a 1.5 million-pound trailer carrying a transformer to PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
There are two wind farms, TB Flats I and II and Ekola Flats, located on about 70 square miles of land surrounding PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Above, some of the winds turbines in TB Flats I. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation, a key hub to transport power from the utility giant’s electricity generated by its vast wind generation system in central Wyoming, is at the end of Carbon County Road 121, located north of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily) 
PacifiCorp’s Aeolus substation, a key hub to transport power from the utility giant’s electricity generated by its vast wind generation system in central Wyoming, is at the end of Carbon County Road 121, located north of Medicine Bow, Wyoming. (Pat Maio, Cowboy State Daily)
Center Of The Universe
The substation is at the center of Rocky Mountain Power’s electrical universe in Wyoming and serves as an important link in the U.S. West grid and to industrial and commercial customers that want the state’s cheap alternative power.
The $3.2 million Ekola bridge was built by Rocky Mountain Power to gain access to the Aeolus substation.
The Aeolus substation is a critical asset for the utility’s Gateway energy transmission project that will connect with Utah and other neighboring states in the Western U.S.
The substation is included in a $2.5 billion electrical grid improvement that parent PacifiCorp has invested in, Eskelsen said.
In Wyoming alone, PacifiCorp has spent $400 million in construction costs to expand the Aeolus substation and connect with these newly built Gateway high-voltage transmission lines, Eskelsen said.
The substation, which is operating at a much lower level now, is expected to get a big boost once all of the transformer pieces are assembled. That’s when the flip is switched to connect it all together. This is scheduled to happen at the end of 2024, said Esckelsen said.
Center Of Wyoming
Consider the impact of the substation.
Rocky Mountain Power has roughly 1,628 megawatts of wind turbine generation coming from central Wyoming, including south of Casper, Glenrock and the Foote Creek Rim area, that will connect with Aeolus. Roughly 668 megawatts of wind generation power will flow into the substation from Montana, Oregon and Washington.
In addition, 1,000 megawatts of wind generation will move through Aeolus that is sent from independent power producers that sell directly to PacifiCorp.
The power from Aeolus will get redirected to customers elsewhere in the state or over a 416-mile transmission line to Mona, Utah, called the Gateway South transmission line.
Mona is located south of Provo, Utah.
The Gateway South line is scheduled to begin carrying electrons for the first time by the end of the year, Eskelsen said.
“When this happens, there will be a lot of room for exporting wind power to Wyoming customers and others,” he said.
This huge Gateway South transmission project is to complement another newly built, 140-mile high-voltage power line that stretches from the Aeolus substation to the new Anticline substation near the Jim Bridger coal-fired power plant outside Rock Springs.
A 5-mile segment extends from the Anticline substation to the Jim Bridger substation.
These key transmission segments are part of the utility’s Gateway West project, itself part of a major transmission expansion that originally began nearly two decades ago.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Omega Morgan’s Wilhelm continued to map out his transport responsibilities for the transformers headed to Aeolus.
The 225 tires that hold the load are evenly distributed so that the roads don’t feel the crushing weight. Permits were obtained from the Wyoming Department of Transportation and Carbon County to allow Omega Morgan to move the industrial-sized transformers, one of which was moving to Aeolus on Friday.
“All of these trucks have sleepers. This is a hard drive that isn’t for the faint of heart, especially with the heat,” Wilhelm said. “We’ll park them and drive the drivers back to Laramie each day to make sure these guys sleep in a hotel bed.”
The Aeolus job has been a big one for Omega Morgan.
For instance, when the Reed Point rail bridge over the Yellowstone River collapsed where it crosses into Montana, Omega Morgan stepped in last year to help transport Boeing Co.’s 737 commercial jet fuselages along an alternative route.
The fuselages were taken to the other side of the river where Montana Rail Link’s trains took them to a Washington factory for assembly.
Omega Morgan also has hauled barges and bridges.
But with Aeolus, “This is probably the biggest job that we’ve ever handled, and that is saying a lot,” said Wilhelm.
Contact Pat Maio at pat@cowboystatedaily.com
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
