Francis Turbine - Bonnington, BC
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 49° 27.364 W 117° 28.907
11U E 465084 N 5478268
Here's another Francis Turbine, this one out of the powerhouse of the Upper Bonnington powerhouse operated by the city of Nelson.
Waymark Code: WMM1YZ
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 07/05/2014
Views: 2
The turbine has been put on display at the entrance to the City of Nelson's Upper Bonnington Hydro facility on the Kootenay River at Bonnington Falls. It's just off Blewett Road, which exits Highway 3A/6 just upstream (east) of the Slocan Dam, the furthest west of the six hydro facilities on this short stretch of river.
This generating station was built on Upper Bonnington Falls by the City of Nelson at the same time as was the Upper Bonnington dam and powerhouse across the river by West Kootenay Power.
Starting with a single vertical waterwheel generator producing 750 kilowatts in 1908, the powerhouse was expanded twice between 1908 and 1948, to a final capacity of 9,000 kilowatts from 4 waterwheel generators. In 1995 a fifth was added bringing the capacity to 15,000 kilowatts. The capacity at present is listed as 16 MW, sufficient to provide 50% of the city's electrical needs.
Simple math will tell us that this turbine, pretty small by today's standards, was capable of producing somewhere around 2.5 Megawatts of power. It was probably installed during the 1948 expansion and retired around 1995, when upgrading was done.
