AES Nearing Completion on Granite Ridge Project

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AES is doing final testing at its Granite Ridge Facility, preparing the plant to come online by the first week of February 2003.

Granite Ridge is a 720-megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant located in Londonderry, New Hampshire. The plant will use two natural gas combustion turbines and one steam turbine to produce electricity. The steam turbine uses the exhaust heat from the combustion turbines to produce additional power. This recycling process makes the plant more efficient. The plant consists of (2) 245-megawatt Westinghouse combustion turbines, joined with (2) Voight heat-recovery steam generators (HRSGs), plus a 230-megawatt Westinghouse steam turbine generator. Construction of the plant started in August 2000 on a 47.7- acre site near the Manchester Airport.

The fuel supply for the plant will be piped through southern New Hampshire from Dracut, Massachusetts. The Department of Environmental Services and the Environmental Protection Agency will be in charge of regulating the amount of pollutants the plant produces once it comes on-line. Power generated from the plant will be back-fed over the same transmission lines and send to the New England power grid.

AES will recycle four million gallons per day of treated wastewater from the Manchester Waste Water Treatment Plant to meet its cooling requirements. When the water arrives at AES, it will have been treated to a level that permits it to be discharged into the Merrimac River. Once at the plant, the water will be filtered and then pumped into the cooling tower.

Energy Northwest will operate and maintain the plant once the construction is complete and has the option to purchase a portion of the plant's output.

Granite Ridge will be operated by AES Londonderry, a subsidiary of AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) (Arlington, Virginia), the world's largest independent power company, is comprised of contract generation, large utilities, growth distribution and competitive supply business.