Texas Cooperative Pleased with Operation of 185 Megawatt Gas/Oil-Fired Expansion

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). South Texas Electric Cooperative Incorporated (STEC) (Nursery, Texas) was very pleased with the performance of its new 229 megawatt (MW) natural gas/oil-fired combined cycle power plant, when it came online in August of 2003. Prior to an expansion and upgrade of the Sam Rayburn Power Station located Northwest of Victoria, Texas in Nursery, Texas, the plant had only 44 MW of power that was about 40 years old (technically end of life by design), having been installed in 1963 through 1965. The project resulted in a 420% increase in power generation capacity of 185MW (PEC 01007659) (PLANT 1029056) and was engineered and constructed for $18 million under the $140 million project budget.

The new unit consists of three General Electric LM6000 SPRINT gas/oil-fired combustion turbine/generator (CT) sets, each with a Foster Wheeler heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) utilizing the waste heat CT's to operate a Dresser Rand steam turbine/generator. The new unit has state of the art emission controls utilizing CO catalysts, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) units, and steam injection for nitrogen oxide (NOx) control. After three months of operation, the new unit operates and performs as projected.

Acting as an intermediate load unit, the combined-cycle unit will be operating 4,000 to 5,000 hours per year. The old oil/gas-fired units, two 1963 11MW CT's (GE Frame 5's) and a 1965 22MW GE steam turbine/generator with front-fired dry bottom Wicks boiler will continue to operate, but as peaking units for the 138 kV system.

The cooperative acted as the construction manager utilizing Burns & Mc Donnell Engineering Company (Kansas City, Missouri) for the engineering and to assist them with construction management. The project construction was bid out and constructed on a piece meal basis. The construction costs and the lower interest rates are what helped bring the addition in under budget.

STEC was formed in 1944 to serve and strength its six rural cooperative member systems in southern Texas. The member systems are Jackson Electric Cooperative Incorporated (Edna, Texas); Karnes Electric Cooperative Incorporated (Karnes City, Texas); Nueces Electric Cooperative Incorporated (Robstown, Texas); San Patricio Electric Cooperative Incorporated, Victoria Electric Cooperative Incorporated (Sinton, Texas) and Wharton County Electric Cooperative Incorporated (El Campo, Texas).