Illinois' Prairie State Energy Campus Commissions First 800-Megawatt Unit

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land)--The supercritical power plant in the final stages of construction for Prairie State Generating Company (PSGC) in Marissa, Illinois, is the largest coal-fired plant to be built in the U.S. since 1982.

The first 800-megawatt (MW) unit of the 1,600-MW power plant has been commissioned, and Unit 2 is expected to begin commercial operations later this year. The generating units of the plant will come under the control of PSGC once commissioned. Bechtel (San Francisco, California) has been executing the engineering and construction contract on the project. The plant is scheduled for final completion in 2013.

The power output from the plant will be scheduled and supplied to municipal and electric cooperative retail customers in the eight states in PSGC's footprint. The project is led by Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU) (St. Louis, Missouri), which has a 5% stake in the operating consortium of power agencies. The PSGC project was created by the group to use domestic energy resources to provide stable and competitively priced power to its customers.

The $4 billion project was designed as a model for the next generation of coal-fired plants in the U.S. The so-called PSGC 'campus ' includes a 7 million-ton-per-year coal mine to feed the power plant. Located about 96 kilometers southeast of St. Louis in Washington County, Illinois, PSGC has invested $1 billion in environmental emission controls, allowing it to meet and exceed the latest state and federal environmental regulations.

The supercritical plant uses pulverized coal and has nitrogen oxide (NOx) controls, selective catalytic reduction, dry electrostatic precipitators, sulfur dioxide scrubbers and wet electrostatic precipitators to reduce emissions.

The eight public power owner-agencies are operated by local government boards to provide communities with reliable, responsible, not-for-profit electric service. The facility will provide power to approximately 2.5 million households.

The 2007 decision of PSGC to begin construction on Prairie State was based on sound long-term forecasts showing that electricity generated from coal-fired plants would be very competitive with other fuels such as nuclear and natural gas over the 30-plus year life of the facility. This remains the case today, even after some operating delays, according to PSGC.

The PSGC consortium claims that coal-fired power prices remain stable and reliable when compared with the historic volatility of natural gas prices.

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