B&M Awarded Major Design-Build Contract for Novelis Heavy Industrial Plant

Black & McDonald (B&M) is proud to have been recently awarded a design-build contract by Novelis, the world’s largest producer of rolled aluminum sheeting, for a new primary 115 kV electrical service for their heavy industrial plant in Oswego, New York. 

The Novelis Oswego facility is also the thermal and electrical host to an adjacent 1,100 MW natural gas, steam and electric power generation facility, one of the largest combined cycle power plants in the state of New York, which is owned by Vistra and known as the Independence Power Plant. 

Our partnership with Novelis started in 2020, when we were selected to perform a construction management services contract to oversee the engineering, procurement and construction deliverables for the client on this project, and our role then rapidly evolved to that of a turnkey EPC contractor responsible for executing the full scope of work. 

In the early stages of the construction management contract, B&M identified an opportunity to reduce costs for the owner and improve scheduling by offering a full engineering, balance of procurement, construction and testing, and commissioning scope of work on an unsolicited basis. We worked directly with the Novelis stakeholders at multiple levels to develop a single-contract approach on a firm fixed price EPC basis that met the planned budgeting requirements. 

These efforts led to the turnkey contract for the electrical infrastructure project, which involves grid connection planned in April 2022 and coordination of outages and tie-ins with National Grid, a major utility company, and also with the adjacent Independence Power Plant. 

B&M’s contract includes the performance of eight primary scope of work items, currently in progress under a design-build contract: 

1. Providing multi-discipline engineering of a six-breaker ring bus 115 kV substation and a new 13.8 kV power system involving five exiting feeders 
2. Providing multi-discipline engineering of a two-circuit 115 kV power system involving an underground 115 kV XLPE cable system and an overhead 115 kV OH line B&M Awarded Major Design-Build Contract for Novelis Heavy Industrial Plant 
3. Providing multi-discipline engineering of a fibre-optic communication system which will interconnect the adjacent 1,100 MW natural gas power generation system and the new substation, involving upgrades at the Independence Power Plant 345 kV switchyard 
4. Providing balance of procurement 
5. Providing full construction 
6. Providing full testing and commissioning
7. Decommissioning an existing 115 kV oil circuit breaker yard 
8. Decommissioning an existing 115 kV / 13.8 kV end of life substation at the facility 

As of December 8, 2021, one 115 kV underground circuit has been installed, tested and energized. The high-voltage substation is approximately 90 percent completed and the medium voltage cables exiting the substation have been installed. B&M will be receiving the control building in January 2022, finishing the control cable installation during the winter of 2022 and will be self-performing the commissioning with its high-voltage technicians to allow for an April 2022 online date per the original schedule.

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