The view of Albany’s dormant hydro powerhouse from the Third Avenue Bridge on May 16, 2025.
Albany’s small hydropower plant has been shut down for more than a year, which I didn’t discover until I asked about it this week. And I doubt it will ever operate again.
The historic plant, more than a century old, was revived when a new generator was commissioned in 2008. Over the following years it operated sporadically, limited by its federal license to run only when the flow in the South Santiam River exceeded 1,100 cubic feet per second.
From time to time I would look at the plant from the Third Avenue Bridge on the Calapooia River, checking to see whether the turbine shaft was turning and the outflow churning the river’s surface below.
The last time I checked on the details including power production was in 2023, and you can see the story here. Then, last spring, consultants working for the city recommended that the hydropower operation be decommissioned because repairs to the turbine would cost more than the revenue from the electricity produced.
Last week I glanced down from the Third Avenue Bridge again. This is the time of year when the turbine shaft should be spinning and water should be gushing from the outfall. But all was quiet.
I asked about this, and here’s what Kristin Preston, operations manager in Albany Public Works, told me via email:
“The Vine Street hydro facility has been temporarily down as the City works through a renewed ‘Interconnect Agreement’ with PacifiCorp. The previous agreement expired and there are new insurance requirements that the City is evaluating; we can’t operate hydro and put energy back into the grid without this signed agreement. I believe this will be a topic for discussion at a Council meeting in a couple of months.”
Preston said the plant has been shut down since April 2024, when the previous agreement expired.
When it was operating, the 500 KW generator produced enough power for a few hundred homes. Two years ago, the city said earnings from sales to Pacific Power paid for about half the electricity needed to run the Vine Street water treatment plant.
Given the poor economics of the plant and the reported need for expensive repairs, I would not be surprised if the city council — once it wakes up to the issue — decides to give up on Albany hydropower once and for all. (hh)
No water is coming out of the outflow on the Calapooia River. This shows the generator is off.
Here we are, facing a supposed electricity crisis with all the EVs and new data centers coming on line and PP&L can get it together so that Albany can use a long established hydro plant?! Amazing. I guess there is no electricity crisis and it is just politics.
Maybe it can be sold along with the airport? Seems like these old things are irrelevant in 2025 Albany.
No hydro plant. No street maintenance. But at least we’re getting underground cables and brick streets (but just for the waterfront). I guess that’s all that really matters to our city “leaders”.
Maybe they can add more traffic cameras and tack on some more “special” fees to our bills.
When they first installed this, you were still at the D-H and I comment then that the idea never came close to penciling out.
With absolutely ZERO expenses expended for labor, maintenance & etc. it would have taken 60-90 years to pay for the basic installation.
I also added that the govt. was starting to regulate dams etc. much more and that posed a potential problem.
AND THEN, I pointed out the stupidity of buying the equipment from China with problems of political climate, availability, cost, shipping times etc.
So Ray & Sharon, how much more are we going to find out that you’ve cost us with your pie in the sky ideas? How many additional man hours were wasted? I’m sure when it ran, you had to have somebody there in case of electrical malfunction.
Very convenient for you to skip over the fact that the Energy Trust of Oregon provided a large portion of the original costs for bringing the system back online from a grant they gave to the City.
Very convenient of you to fail to mention where that money came from.
This was put in because it was fashionable at the time, it never penciled out, all the work at the diversion dam had to be done to put the generator back on line and was not partially collected from Lebanon when it should have been, so they refused to pay for the upgrade, It would not have been required right away for drinking water but would have eventually and so Albany paid for all of it. Talking about it exacerbated the hard feelings with Lebanon at the time and I think that is one of the reasons that they made their own inlet from the river.