Taking a dive in the Fishbowl: BPA’s state-of-the-art telecommunications lab

Housed within the Ross Complex's new Technical Services Building (TSB), a lab filled with intricate wiring and state-of-the-art equipment simulates a portion of the Bonneville Power Administration's power grid. Sitting in cubicles outside of the room, BPA engineers can view test equipment in the lab through its large glass windows.

Dubbed the “Fishbowl," the lab houses equipment for the Technical Services and Test and Evaluation groups – accomplishing the task of combining lab and office space and allowing engineers to keep a close watch over their equipment.

The first iteration of the Fishbowl was housed in the Ross Complex's North Ampere building. Jason Burt, supervisory electrical engineer, helped oversee the implementation of the lab within North Ampere, transforming a warehouse into a functional testing space.

“We came up with this idea that we could create this space inside the warehouse to appropriately cool and sound-isolate equipment that was running," said Burt.

When BPA began designing the new TSB as a replacement for the Ampere buildings, Burt and others recognized an opportunity to improve on the original Fishbowl. Technical Services worked alongside Space Management, now Facilities Planning and Projects, to lay out a format that met engineers' requirements. Interior designer Carie Camacho worked alongside Burt to finalize the lab's design.

Camacho said the primary consideration for designing the lab was allowing engineers to see their equipment during testing. To accomplish this, cubicles were placed outside of the room next to large windows, allowing for increased visibility of the equipment inside.

“From that basic need we were able to develop the rest of the requirements," Camacho said. Among them was a direct cabling connection between workstations and equipment within the Fishbowl.

Inside the lab, next to rows of equipment racks and cabling trays, is an extensive amount of telecommunications equipment. This equipment sends various types of communications throughout the grid, including radio, metering, relay, and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) communications.

“You can get communications into a substation via fiber optic cables that are hung below the conductors on transmission lines," engineer Stewart Larvick said. In addition to fiber optic cables, Larvick said microwave radio equipment can also be used when a fiber optic connection is not viable. For certain substations, connections could include both fiber optic and microwave radio connection, allowing for communication if one goes offline.

The equipment in the Fishbowl replicates three substations and a control center, interconnected with fiber optic and microwave radio transport terminals, allowing engineers to test equipment as if it was operating in the field.

Incorporating plans for the Fishbowl into the overall TSB design allowed for various improvements and upgrades that were not feasible in the lab's North Ampere location. Supervisory electronics engineer Bret Aguirre said improvements were made to the lab's soundproofing, including a small room inside the Fishbowl to contain the loudest equipment. Architect Thane Miller said improvements were also made to the building's HVAC ensuring more equipment could be reliably cooled.

The size of the lab has also been increased with a more spacious layout allowing for additional equipment racks to be wheeled in and connected. With the lab's evolving nature, future expansion was taken into consideration, according to Miller. Classroom spaces next to the lab could be converted into additional rack space if needed.

At the start of this year, new fiber optic equipment was moved into the lab for testing. The testing is for next-generation fiber optic ethernet that can transport data at speeds up to 100 gigabits per second. There are also plans to outfit the lab with its own supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system – automating data collection and analysis and allowing engineers to monitor almost any device in the lab.

By providing engineers the opportunity to test and evaluate equipment as if were installed in the field, the Fishbowl and its staff play an important role in BPA's mission of reliable power and transmission delivery.