SMUD'S Cosumnes Power Project Starts Construction

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) (Sacramento, California) has broken ground on a 500MW (megawatt) power plant in Herald, California. SMUD began construction on phase one of the Cosumnes Power Plant (PEC 06003400) (Plant 1053502) on October 21, 2003 and is scheduled to start commercial operation in mid 2005. SMUD will install two 171MW GE turbines and one 180MW Mitsubishi steam turbine giving the design total of 522MW with plans to provide approximately 500MW to the grid. The total cost of phase one is estimated to cost $361 million. The Cosumnes power plant will not only save its customers about $15 to $25 million a year, but it will also expand SMUD's capacity by almost 50 percent.

Utility Engineering Corporation, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy Incorporated (Minneapolis, Minnesota) (XEL: NYSE) has provided engineering services for this project and the construction contract was awarded to Fru-con Construction Company (Ballwin, Missouri).

SMUD was founded to provide electricity for Sacramento customers since 1946. When comparing the number of customers served, SMUD is the nation's sixth largest community owned utility company supplying electricity to 1.2 million customers over a 900 square mile area. This utility group generates electricity from natural gas, wind power, solar power and hydroelectric plants.

Utility Engineering Corporation, (UE) is an engineering firm that developed and owns its internal capability to engineer and manage construction of its power projects with headquarters in Denver, Colorado. UE also provides engineering services for more than 30,000MW of electric generation.

Fru-con Construction is one of the largest construction firms in the nation, and specializes in construction management, engineering, general contracting, and operations support and commissioning.