POWER digest
News items of interest to power industry professionals.
AREVA names planned U.S. enrichment facility “Eagle Rock.” Nuclear technology vendor AREVA announced on July 23 that its facility under development in Bonneville County, Idaho, near Idaho Falls, will be called the “Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility” in recognition of the name’s symbolism and significance to the surrounding community.
“This name was selected for several reasons. It includes the American symbol of strength, the eagle, and envisions the strength of America as we move towards greater clean energy security, while the rock represents a symbol of endurance and quality. Most of all, the name embodies an important connection with the history of Idaho Falls, whose early name was Eagle Rock,” said AREVA Inc. President Michael McMurphy
The multi-billion-dollar facility will provide enrichment services to U.S. nuclear plant operators using advanced centrifuge technology developed by Areva subsidiary Enrichment Technology Co. Centrifuge technology has been successfully deployed in Europe for more than 30 years and uses 50 times less electricity than the gaseous diffusion process, Areva said.
AREVA operates the Georges Besse enrichment plant in France, which it says has operated safely for nearly 30 years. The company is currently constructing a new gas centrifuge enrichment facility in France--Georges Besse II. First deliveries are expected in 2009.
MAN Solar Millennium preps third parabolic-trough solar plant. Germany’s MAN Solar Millennium GmbH is to conduct preliminary work before the official contract award for Andasol 3, the third plant of a 150-MW parabolic trough solar power system in the southern Spanish province of Andalusia. The Essen-based company is to act as general contractor on the project and will deliver the solar plant in turnkey condition by February 2011 in partnership with Spanish construction firm Duro Felgueara S.A. Energia.
The Andasol 3 power plant will be built close to sister projects Andasol 1 and 2. Andasol 1, the first parabolic trough power plant in Europe, has been under construction since June 2006 and will go into operation this year. Commissioning of Andasol 2 will follow in spring 2009.
Each plant takes up an area of about 2 square kilometers (0.78 square miles). With a collector surface area of 510,000 square meters (5,500 square feet), each produces about 50 MW to help the Spanish grid meet peak summertime demand. Each plant will also be equipped with a thermal energy reservoir holding 28,500 tons of molten salt, enough to run a turbine for about 7.5 hours at full load and supply the grid with power while it is raining or long past sunset, says the company.
Parabolic trough power plants employ trough-shaped mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a tube along the collector’s focal point. Once absorbed, the solar rays pass their heat on to a conducting fluid. Energy is transferred in a heat exchanger to generate the steam used to produce power in a turbine generator.
Wärtsilä opens fuel cell power plant in Finland. On July 15, Finland’s minister for economic affairs, Mauri Pekkarinen, inaugurated the New Energy power plant at the Vaasa Housing Fair. The plant is a fuel cell unit, developed by Wärtsilä Corp., that is based on planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology. The unit is the first of its kind in the world and Wärtsilä’s first field application of the technology, according to the company.
The plant is fueled by methane gas originating from a nearby landfill. During the initial phase, it will produce approximately 20 kW of electricity and a thermal output equivalent to 14 to 17 kW. The plant will also produce power and heat generated by micro-turbines and by low-temperature heat that is collected from the seabed using a geothermal heat pump.
Landfill methane is considered a renewable fuel, which means that this fuel cell technology is compliant with the energy and climate package of the EU Commission, the company said. The EU requires Finland to increase its share of renewable power sources from its current 28.5% to 38% by 2020.
Fermi 2 completes 10 million safe work hours. Employees at Detroit Edison’s 1,100-MW Fermi 2 boiling water reactor reached 10 million hours worked on June 30 without a work-related accident. The safe-work period stretches back to June 17, 2002. The company said in a statement released on July 31 that the record string of safe days had continued without interruption.
Fermi 2, which began commercial operation in 1988, employs about 900 workers and produces about 15% of Detroit Edison’s generated power. The 72-month period is the station’s best performance, surpassing a 52-month stretch of 8.34 million hours from 1992 to 1996.
Plant Manager Kevin Hlavaty noted that Fermi 2 exceeds another important safety measure--the total industrial safety accident rate (TISAR)--which is the official nuclear industry safety gauge. The industry goal is a 0.2 TISAR. “We are well below that, but our goal will always be no recordable injuries,” Hlavaty said.
Training, safety meetings, and preventive measures all are elements of Fermi 2 safety culture, George MacAdam, a senior safety and health engineer, said. MacAdam added that the key to achieving a high level of safety is that individual employees make safety a personal priority. “People are aware of its importance and are committed to working safely every day, regardless of what job they are doing,” he said.
Vogt Power to provide HRSGs for Spanish group’s project in Argentina. Babcock Power Inc. subsidiary Vogt Power International announced in July it would supply heat recovery steam generators (HRSG) to the Isolux Corsan Group for Pampa Holding’s Loma de la Lata Plant in the Patagonian Province of Neuquen in Argentina.
As part of a $25 million contract, Vogt Power said it would will design, manufacture, and deliver three natural circulation HRSGs for installation behind General Electric Frame 9E gas turbines. The combined-cycle systems would increase the generation capacity at the Loma de la Lata plant to 545 MW, it said.
Alstom to build 235-MW Unit 5 for Javanese plant. Alstom, in consortium with Marubeni Corp., announced in August it had won a $238.8 million contract with Indonesia’s national electricity utility, PT.PLN., for the construction of a combined-cycle power plant at Maura Tawar, on the northern coast of Java.
The project consists of adding a fifth unit to the existing power plant. The Alstom-Marubeni consortium already built Unit 1, a combined-cycle plant, and Unit 2, a gas turbine peaking plant, in 1995. Unit 5 will increase the total output of the plant by 235 MW, from the current 1,800 MW, and will help to meet the current high electricity demand on the Java/Bali grid. The plant will be operated with natural gas.
Under the terms of the contract, Alstom, as the consortium leader, will engineer, procure, and commission a fully integrated power island. The island will consist of one GT13E2 gas turbine with one HRSG, one COMAX steam turbine, two turbogenerators, and the ALSPA control system. Alstom will engineer and manufacture the HRSGs at its boiler facility in Surabaya, the capital of east Java. Marubeni Corp. will supply the balance of plant, high-voltage switchyard, civil works, and erection services.
Alstom said it has been a key player in the Indonesian power generation market since the 1960s, helping PT. PLN to support the country’s growing energy demand via the construction of gas, coal, and hydro plants. That company currently employs more than 900 people in Surabaya, where it produces HRSGs, fluidized-bed and supercritical boilers mainly for export.
--Compiled by Sonal Patel.
Correction
In the August issue we listed the wrong owner and general contractor in Table 2 on page 35. Wisconsin Public Service Corp. is the owner and was the general contractor on its recently commissioned Weston Unit 4. POWER regrets the error.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
