Nebraska Public Power District Finishes 250-Megawatt Power Station Under Budget and Ahead of Schedule

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). On January 7, 2005, the joint-venture of Utility Engineers (UE) (Omaha, Nebraska), a division of Xcel Energy (NYSE:XEL ) and The Industrial Company (TIC) (Steamboat Springs, Colorado) "handed over the keys" to Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) (Columbus, Nebraska) for a new natural gas-fired 250-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle power station in Beatrice, Nebraska. The joint-venture performed a turn-key engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) on the project.

The new station increases NPPD's generating capacity from 2,670 MW to 2,920 MW, or about 9%. Beatrice Power Station was originally estimated to cost $241 million, but with some design modifications, for example, by making it natural gas-fired only instead of being duel-fueled with natural gas and oil, the capital cost was reduced to under $200 million. With the modifications, TIC and UE were able to begin construction on the station at the end of May 2003 and have it in commercial operation in early January 2005, instead of the previously scheduled date of early June 2005 (a duration of nineteen months instead of twenty-four).

The Beatrice Power Station is what is called an intermediate load station as it is usually operated at 2-40% but can be brought up quickly when load requires it. The station is rated at 250MW, but during certain times of the year may only be able to produce up to 229MW (enough to provide for 220,000 homes), due to the effect of the temperature on the operations. The station utilizes two General Electric (GE) Frame 7 (MS7001EA) natural gas-fired combustion turbine generators (CT), each rated at 80 MW, and to drive the Alstom 90MW steam turbine generator, there is a VOGT heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) on each CT that utilizes waste heat and has natural gas-fired duct burners if needed. The station also has a Nebraska Boiler Company natural gas and oil-fired 20,000 pound-per-hour auxiliary boiler to provide steam for operations. The station has carbon monoxide (CO) catalysts to help reduce carbon oxides emissions and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) units to reduce nitrous oxide (NOx). When it is at full staff the plant will have fourteen employees, but for actual start up and operation it will only require only two employees.

The Beatrice Power Station is one of 124 new power plants currently under development in the U.S., scheduled to begin operation in 2005. Seventeen plants are scheduled to come online in the Midwest Market Region, alone, which in addition to Nebraska includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. The largest region in the U.S. for new power plant developement is the West Coast Market Region, which has 27 plants due to start up this year, about 22% of the total. Click on the image at right to view the distribution of these new power plants by market region.

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