Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) began engaging stakeholders in 2003 to develop consensus on a regional energy plan designed to balance customers’ desire for low electricity costs with system reliability needs and environmental requirements. The culmination of that plan was the completion of Iatan 2, which entered service in August 2010. For executing an innovative energy plan that reduced overall fleet emissions, ensuring the region’s future electricity supply, and completing an approximately $2 billion project in time for the summer 2010 peak load by using innovative contracting and project controls, KCP&L’s Iatan 2 is awarded POWER’s 2011 Plant of the Year Award.
KCP&L, headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., serves about 820,000 customers in western Missouri and eastern Kansas. Great Plains Energy Inc. is the holding company of Kansas City Power & Light and KCP&L Greater Missouri Operations Co. (GMO, the former Aquila, purchased in July 2008). However, KCP&L is the brand name used to represent both of these utilities.
KCP&L has an installed capacity of approximately 6,700 MW. Its coal-fired Iatan Station, located about 30 miles northwest of Kansas City, near Weston, Mo., features the recently renovated approximately 700-MW Unit 1 and the 850-MW (net) Unit 2, which went into service in August 2010 (see Table 1). Iatan 2 (Figure 1) was KCP&L’s first new baseload plant in nearly three decades. In addition, this milestone marked the finale of KCP&L’s Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP), initiated seven years earlier. The plant is named after Iatan, a chief of the Otoe tribe that fought battles with the Comanche (also called Iatan) around 1800.
Table 1. Key milestones for the Iatan 2 project. Iatan 2, erected over a five-year period, was one of the largest and most complex construction projects in Missouri and KCP&L history. Source: KCP&L
1. Latest and greatest. The Iatan Generating Station is located on the banks of the Missouri River in western Missouri. Commercial operation of Iatan 2 in December 2010 added 850 MW to the approximately 700 MW produced by Iatan 1. Iatan 2 was the first new baseload power generator installed by KCP&L in nearly 30 years.
The Plan
In 2003, KCP&L began updating its energy development plans to meet expected regional demand growth for itself and its project partners. The goal of the CEP was to add needed baseload capacity while lowering the utility’s overall emissions by strategically adding renewable energy projects and investing in energy efficiency, a synergistic package of improvements benefiting all stakeholders. KCP&L’s fuel mix is about 80% coal, 17% nuclear (Wolf Creek Generating Station was the last baseload generation built, in 1985), 2% natural gas and oil, and 1% wind.
Specifically, the CEP proposed development of about 100 MW of wind energy, upgrading the air quality control equipment on Iatan 1, a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system for LaCygne 2, a number of transmission and distribution system upgrades, a demand-side management program designed to help ratepayers reduce consumption, and the development of Iatan 2. William Downey, executive vice chairman and the company’s senior executive on the project, noted in an interview with POWER, “When Iatan 2 was being built, it was one of the largest and most complex construction projects in KCP&L and Missouri history. Because of the benefits it brought to this region, it was a bright spot in a bleak economic time.”
Downey also noted that portions of the CEP proposed financial processes that would allow the utility to maintain credit metrics throughout the construction process given that Missouri regulations do not allow construction work in process to be added to the rate base. The KCP&L cost analysis concluded that, from a baseload generation perspective, coal-fired generation still enjoys a significant cost advantage over other generation technologies, even when considering the cost of meeting challenging emissions-reduction goals.
"A unique feature of Iatan 2's design is the ability to peak the output of the plant while not burning any additional fuel." This is incorrect. It should read "A unique feature of Iatan 2's design is the ability to peak the output of the plant while not generating additional main steam flow."
Also, "This off-design operation results in a reduction in the plant heat rate of 100 Btu/kWh" should read "This off-design operation results in an increase in the plant heat rate of 100 Btu/kWh"
By the way its just not the MOV costs there are other costs involved. However, it will have lower capital costs over a 40 MW gas turbine.
Posted by Jon Erickson on Thursday, August 11, 2011 @ 04:46 PM
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Also, "This off-design operation results in a reduction in the plant heat rate of 100 Btu/kWh" should read "This off-design operation results in an increase in the plant heat rate of 100 Btu/kWh"
By the way its just not the MOV costs there are other costs involved. However, it will have lower capital costs over a 40 MW gas turbine.