Empire Generating Begins Construction on 625-Megawatt Combined-Cycle Plant in New York

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Empire Generating Company began installing pilings in March at the Empire State Power plant in Rensselaer, New York. Initially planned as a cogeneration facility in the mid-1990s for the proposed Empire State Newsprint Mill, construction on the 635-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle power plant is moving forward without the newsprint mill project -- at least for now. The power plant project is expected to cost about $700 million.

Major equipment delivery is scheduled to begin in August and run through October. Construction is expected to be complete, and the plant is expected to begin commercial operation in December 2009. The power-generating facility will consist of two dual-fueled (natural gas and oil) GE Power Systems MS7001FA combustion turbine/generators. The turbines will each be attached to three Alstom duct-fired pressure heat recovery steam generators that will utilize waste heat to drive a GE D11 steam turbine generator to produce additional electricity. Duct-firing is expected to add more than 100 MW of generation.

FirstLight Power Resources (Hartford, Connecticut), a subsidiary of Energy Capital Partners (Short Hills, New Jersey), bought Besicorp-Empire Power Holdings Incorporated from the Besicorp-Empire Development Company in July 2007. Besicorp-Empire Power owned 100% of membership interests in Besicorp-Empire Power Company LLC, which was renamed Empire Generating Company, according to FirstLight Power Resources.

Lockwood Greene (Spartanburg, South Carolina), a wholly owned subsidiary of CH2M HILL, was awarded the turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction contract for the project.

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