Electrostatic Precipitator Rebuild Project at Texas Power Plant Scheduled for 2006

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Topaz Power Partners, a 50-50 joint venture partnership between Sempra Energy Partners (San Diego, California), a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) (San Diego, California) and The Carlyle Group (Washington, DC), is defining project scope for a electrostatic precipitator (ESP) rebuild at the Coleto Creek Power Station. The project is scheduled for construction during the first quarter of 2006.

The Coleto Creek Power station consists of a single 570-megawatt power plant and is located in Fannin, Goliad County, Texas. In operation since 1980, the coal-fired unit is home to an Alstom Combustion Engineering tangential-fired dry bottom boiler and a General Electric turbine generator set.

Rebuilding an existing ESP is a cost-effective way of meeting strict guidelines to reduce particulate emissions. The precipitator at the plant is being rebuilt so the plant can burn one hundred percent Powder River Basin (PRB) coal. PRB coal is a low sulfur emitting coal mined in Wyoming. The facility currently uses a mixture of fifty-percent PRB and fifty-percent bituminous coal. Completion of the project is expected to occur in 2007.

Topaz Power acquired the Coleto Creek Power Station in July 2004, as part of a $430 million acquisition from American Electric Power (AEP) (Columbus, Ohio). The acquisition also included five other operating plants: the 704 megawatt gas/oil Barney M. Davis Plant (Corpus Christi, Texas), the 6 megawatt Eagle Pass Hydro Power Station (Eagle Pass, Texas), the 182 megawatt gas/oil JL Bates Power Station (Mission, Texas), the 255 megawatt gas/oil La Palma Power Station (San Benito, Texas), and the 178 megawatt gas Laredo Power Station (Laredo, Texas). It also includes four other currently inactive plants. Topaz Power will be evaluating the possibility of restarting these plants. The purchase price includes upgrade with improvements, as well as restarting decommissioned plants. Sempra Energy will provide asset management and operation services for the plants.