Looking Back at Power Forward

Power Forward, NC State’s four-year electrical distribution system upgrade, has come to its trench-digging end.

The $60 million, multiphase project that temporarily closed streets, sidewalks and some buildings has finished the installation of the self-healing electrical grid that will secure the power supply to every building on main campus.

Admittedly, there were some trying times over the four and a half years since the project began in January 2022, from the inconveniences of closures, fences, construction equipment and the bureaucratic difficulty of getting permission to trench under and near the railroad tracks that have long bisected North and Central campuses.

“We believe the short-term pain was worth the long-term gain of the project,” says Doug Morton, associate vice chancellor for NC State’s Facilities Division.

Morton and other leaders in the Facilities Division say the completed project fulfills the promises made when ground was first broken to make the electrical grid safe, reliable, self-healing and futureproof.

“We did what we said we wanted to do,” Morton says. “Getting there had so many more twists and turns than maybe we wanted. This was a fully underground project, so despite the upfront research we did on the campus physical layout, there were some surprises we encountered as we installed 54 new above-ground switches and more than 100 building connections.

“I don’t know that there was any connection to a building that just went exactly as we had planned it.”

In addition, the dozen or so members of the facilities staff who made the building connections had to work while school was in session for double-digit academic semesters, summer sessions and all the other activities and events that are part of a modern college experience. They took some time off during high-traffic move-in and move-out days.

Most of the time, to mitigate impact to campus activities, they worked after business hours and on weekends while installing dangerous high-voltage equipment.

Communication — including town halls, a dedicated website and copious campus signage — helped make the project a success, says Melanie Butler, the design project manager for the effort.

“As we moved from each phase, we had town halls to let campus know what our plans were and to get feedback,” Butler says. “We were able to provide real-time information.

“There was a big effort to inform everyone what was happening.”

The communication and coordination were critical on each component of the facilities team.

“There wasn’t one person or one unit that made the project successful,” Butler says. “We really all worked together with all of our facilities teams, our partners, and our outside contractors and designers.

“It took everybody to be on board and make the project successful.”

Originally, as part of a physical master plan, the project was slated to take 10 full years to complete, but the installation was scaled down to four years, with the full blessing of then-Chancellor Randy Woodson, saving some $10 to $15 million from inflationary construction costs.

“Hats off to Chancellor Woodson for understanding the importance of the entire project,” says Cameron Smith, assistant vice chancellor for design and construction. “Taking it from a 10-year project to less than five years took a ton of coordination.”

Woodson was certainly one of the disruptive project’s biggest proponents to what could have been a skeptical audience.

“I don’t know how many administrative meetings the chancellor talked about it,” Morton says. “He put it in the right light. He didn’t say ‘This is drudgery’ or ‘This is the worst thing ever.’ All he talked about was the positive outcome.”

While it wasn’t flawless, the project has become a model for how to install a world-class utility system without major disruption. UNC System schools Elizabeth City State and UNC Greensboro are both upgrading their electrical and chilled water systems, using the same designers, contractors and methodology as NC State.

“People are realizing, if they didn’t realize it before, that there’s a lot of risk associated with unreliable utilities such as electricity, chill water, steam gas, storm water, domestic water, so forth and so on,” Smith says.

With construction and installation completed, all remaining automation should be done by September, Morton says. Facilities will return its last staging area — a parking lot near Lee Residence Hall and Dan Allen Drive — to transportation in time for the start of the fall semester.