Gainesville Regional Utilities Moves Transformer With a Little Help from Palmolive Dish Soap

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 11, 2023

Florida public power utility Gainesville Regional Utilities and Rountree Transport & Rigging recently teamed up to move a 114,000-pound transformer at the utility’s Sugarfoot Substation.

This upgrade is a part of our ongoing seven-year project to enhance substations with higher-capacity, more efficient units, improving reliability and accommodating system growth, GRU noted.

“Thanks to innovative techniques, including the use of hydraulics, steel rails, and a secret ingredient (orange Palmolive dish soap),” GRU noted in a Facebook post. The Palmolive soap was “used to lubricate the rails they slide the transformer on. They discovered that orange works best,” noted David Warm, GRU spokesman.

Tom Boyer, substation principal engineer at GRU, said on May 8 that “We have replaced four transformers so far since starting this program.” 

The fifth transformer was delivered “about a week ago but won’t be in service until later this month or early next month. We have two more transformers scheduled to be delivered at the end of this year,” he said.