French River's Mission

French River Land Company (FRL) develops small and micro hydro resources.  As hydro developer, French River provides the unique experience, engineering and craftsmanship to build and operate hydro projects in the Northeast. 

FRL was incorporated on February 10, 1992. Since 1992, French River has owned the dormant South Village hydro project. In 1995 it purchased  Building 9 in the Ware Mill Complex. In June of 1997 FRL purchased the Tannery Pond Hydro Project in Winchendon, MA. It went on line in June of 1999 to satisfy FERC license requirements. Due to contract negotiation problems, with Templeton Power & Light, it did not commence commercial operations until May of 2004. At that time, Will & Celeste negotiated a new power sales contract, with with the Massachusetts Electric Company. They received their first check from the Massachusetts Electric Company in June of 2004! This was the first cash flow the site had earned in over 50 years!! (see the Tannery Pond sidebar) In December of 2003, Celeste and Will Fay purchased the entire stock of FRL. In March of 2004, FRL purchased Golden Pond Hydro in Ashland, N.H. This site was last operated in June of 2002 when it was badly damaged by a lightening strike. On January 3rd of 2008, Golden Pond Hydro began commercial operations with a signed contract with the Ashland Electric Light Department. It took almost four years, of weekends, to rebuild the badly damaged and thoroughly worn out tube turbine (see the Hydrolec disassembly, Hydrolec Rebuild and Golden Pond Hydro sidebars).

William K. Fay P.E., FRL's Chief Engineer and General Manager, is a licensed hydro engineer who has inspected 80 dams for the Massachusetts Dam Safety Division and is authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to perform Part 12 inspections of licensed hydropower facilities.  He and his children, Celeste and Will, have rebuilt many small hydro plants located throughout New England.

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May 9th, 2012

I spent the last two weekends removing an 1850s Putnam steam engine from a sub basement of an old cotton mill. I forgot my camera, so no pictures. Peter traded me his Fitchburgh engine lathe for removing the engine. I am very excited to own the lathe. It has a 72 inch faceplate. I will retrofit it with a hydraulic drive and have the ways re-scraped. Here are some pictures of the lathe.

This is a beautiful lathe. It is 150 years old. I will put it back into production. I just need to find a place to put it.

Will is just over 6 feet tall. That is a huge face plate!!

Note the previous owners had retrofitted the lathe with a silent chain drive. Note the change gears are missing. I can still purchase these gears from Boston gear.

A view of the tailstock. I think very big guys ran this machine.

Another view of the tailstock.

How do you repair a draft tube? You wait until the ice is 18 inches thick and you use the ice for staging! The normal water depth here is about 14 feet. It needs to be that deep because the 1700 kW unit discharges at the back of the pit and the water needs to flow beneath the two smaller units' draft tubes.

April 5th, 2012, I share the following e-mail on generator upgrades with you:

"As an example, the Hagley Generator was originally installed on 16 feet of head and was rated at 240 kw in 1928. In 1979, GE rewound the generator for 500 KW. To this day, the generator has two nameplates on it. They are the original nameplate of 240 KW and the rewind nameplate of 500 KW. This is circumstantial evidence that it is possible to achieve substantially more power out of an older hydro generator when it is rewound with new, plastic insulation. The generator manufacturers in the 1920s to 1940s designed for 50% saturation of the stator core. This means you still have 50% more magnetic capability if you can get 50% more current in the stator coils. In the early part of the last century, before the advent of plastic insulating material, the insulation consisted of cotton impregnated with tar and later on, asbestos mixed with tar and cloth coated, to insulate the copper wire. This was very bulky. The metal stator slots, that the wire windings fit into, had to be wide enough to fit the copper windings with their bulky insulating skin. This made for huge slots. If you take one of these generators and strip all the winding material out, you need to fill it back in with modern windings. The problem is, the new windings are insulated with thousandths of an inch thick plastic insulating material instead of 1/8 inch thick cloth/tar insulating material. The generator rewinder can not buy windings with bulky skins. They have no choice but to fill the slots with 50% more copper in order to fill the stator slots. This makes for a more costly rewind when compared to 1920 equivalent dollars. If you can not use the additional capacity capability, you receive a generator with an enormous service factor. The generator runs cooler than the 1920's generator. If you move the turbine to a higher head and produce more power or if you install a turbine that makes more power, in the original setting, the generator can produce the larger power output."

Please see the following IEEE Paper on generator upgrades:

   <<<< click here for paper

April 2nd, 2012, added "Low Head Hydro Plants", by Emil Mosonyi in side bar.

Turning a turbine throat ring on the newly restored Niles Boring Mill. Please see:

Rebuilding 120" Niles Boring Mill<<< click here

Contact Information

Telephone

1-413-244-6445

 

Electronic mail

General mail: wfay@frenchriverland.com
Webmaster:    bfay@frenchriverland.com

 

Last modified: 05/09/12