NJ TRANSIT, Hoboken Depot and Henderson Street Substation Rehabilitation

Burns performs electrical inspections on restoration of storm-ravaged substations, delivering assurance of performance and resiliency goals.

When Hurricane Sandy swept the region, New Jersey TRANSIT Authority’s Hoboken Station flooded. Saltwater from the Hudson River inundated the station’s electrical substations, knocking power systems out of commission for weeks.

Construction is under way of multiple substations designed to provide redundant auxiliary power, while withstanding future floods and supporting interconnection to future power sources.

Substation features include:

• The Henderson Street Substation, a former boiler facility, will receive two 26.4 kV medium-voltage services from the grid, stepped down to 13.2 kV to feed Hoboken Depot Substation and West End Substation. It also has three emergency generators for backup.
• The Hoboken Depot Substation, constructed within a former immigrant way station, receives 13.2 kV service feed from the Henderson Street Substation and connects to lower-voltage transformers.
• Both substations offer redundancy through a secondary selective system design.
• Double-ended, indoor secondary units are equipped with primary switchgear transformers and low-voltage draw out power circuit breakers arranged in a main-tie-main configuration.

Burns acts as a subcontractor to Naik, the consultant construction manager. Burns engineers oversee electrical, security and information technology system testing plans of the two new substations’ specialized equipment.

The oversight role involves:

• Review and improvement of test procedures,
• Monitoring of factory acceptance, site acceptance and commissioning tests, and
• Suggestions for systems design modifications.

The Henderson substation is also designed to connect with a future power source, NJ Transitgrid. The microgrid being developed by NJ Transit will provide reliable sources of electric power to facilities located throughout the northeast corner of the state. Hoboken Station will be among the facilities to rely upon the microgrid’s power sources in the event of future power disruptions.

Burns is the lead electrical engineer on the NJ Transitgrid transmission and distribution system.