Vale, OR, USA
Outside of the town of Vale in eastern Oregon, U.S. Geothermal and Enbridge announced the completion of the Neal Hot Springs geothermal power plant. The plant, which was developed by U.S. Geothermal, is a supercritical binary geothermal power plant, which uses R134a refrigerant as the working fluid, an air-cooled condenser, as well as prefabricated modular construction of major plant components. The power plant is well situated as far as environmental impact issues are concerned. It is not visible from any highways or any residents that are unassociated with the project. In addition, there are no unique or endangered plant or animal species in the area, which has resulted in no objections raised amongst the community regarding the power plant. The project has created approximately 150 construction jobs and over 12 permanent jobs. The plant will also sell its output to Idaho Power under a 25-year power purchase agreement.
In the Spring of 2019, Portland Bolt manufactured the custom anchor bolt requirement for a project taking place at the Neal Hot Springs Power Plant. The anchor rods required were 1-1/4” diameter ASTM F1554 Grade 55 and were threaded on each end. They also required square anchor plates for the embedded end. The application required that these bolts have a corrosion-resistant coating, so they were hot-dip galvanized, which Portland Bolt performs in-house. Portland Bolt has a long track record of manufacturing anchor bolts for this type of work, so there were no issues getting the parts shipped to the job site as needed.
