Davis Hydro, LLC
A Davis Collaborative Company

ROCK CREEK DAM RETROFIT PROJECT

2008

Presently, Davis Hydro has allowed all FERC permits to expire as PG&E has not yet come to final agreement on the proposed MOU. We have worked with PG&E to develop the project as contract employees or as third party developers.  The request to privately develop the project either inside their dam or the right apron remains waiting on PG&E for a go ahead. Copies the MOU were included in later FERC Progress Reports.

November 2007

Current Status: 

PG&E has stopped progress on this project for undisclosed reasons.  They have given us complete support and reassurances up to 2 years ago this month at which time we were negotiating a final MOU.  Then suddenly no further communication and calls were not returned. At this point PG&E has filed for a preliminary permit on the site. We remain willing to do the project with them.

Progress: November 2006

1st Stage Consultation is complete; studies continue. We paid over $10,000 to PG&E to approve the interconnection. Now awaiting PG&E's time for review of designs and possible lease agreements.

Progress: October 2006

A draft MOU submitted in November 2005 is being reviewed by PG&E. We have been waiting for PG&E to finish their review. We are actively working with CFG to finish the Stage 1 studies. We anticipate draft completion of these studies by December, 2006. There have been on hold pending completion of PG&E's review.

The most recent FERC Progress Report is available here as a MS Word 200 formatted document.

Past progress and activity reports with associated documents are available, please visit here.

PG&E has been reviewing an agreement submitted in November 2005 on this project.  No decision has been made.  Informal discussions have suggested that PG&E feels that there might be interference with their current operations.  Davis Hydro has requested discussion of the project, but for the past year and a half PG&E has been unable to schedule this meeting.

Related Ongoing Projects

Sediment Transport: Ongoing discussions are taking place on how to use the hydro project to help with downstream sediment transport between storms. To that end, Davis Hydro has prepared a white paper with some discussion ideas that might be considered if the current strategy proved insufficient to keep the gate inlets clear.

This white paper, dated (9/14/04) is available for download here.

A related technical discussion paper dated September 2004 is available here.

Communication: One of the benefits of the hydro power will be a the offer of an improvement in communication with, and control of, the dam using new communication technology, control, and flow instrumentation. This system will use an Internet based, non-proprietary, high security, satellite-based communications system. This satellite-based system is suggested as a direction for system growth that can be incrementally expanded to all PG&E dams.

Ramp Rate Control: To control ramp rates a small amount of additional equipment is suggested that could be controlled in different ways. The improved flow instrumentation and control options (not communication) are addressed in a white paper written (9/16/04). This is available for download here.

In early May, we filed our first progress report of the Preliminary Permit with the FERC and the California State Water Resources Control Board. A MS WORD copy is available here (5/10/05).

Documents, Older Proposed Designs, and Data

Site Pictures (2004)

Ongoing Stage 1 Service list  

(Updated on 2-4-05) This is updated irregularly as people ask to join, leave, or addresses change.

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