October 1, 2009

Top Plants: Nebraska City Station Unit 2, Nebraska City, Nebraska

Dr. Robert Peltier, PE

Prime Project Team

HDR and its partner, Stanley Consultants, provided owner’s engineer (OE) technical support services to OPPD for NC2. Early in the project, the OE team helped guide OPPD through the preliminary engineering phase of the project, including permitting, setting the schedule, developing project specifications, and selecting the EPC contractor. An extensive amount of research and effort went into this front-end work, which paid benefits toward the project’s success. The OE also provided construction management support during the construction and commissioning of NC2.

OPPD selected the familiar EPC approach for constructing NC2 to have a single point of responsibility for the entire project, with a project wrap guarantee that included plant overall performance, plant air emissions, and on-time project completion.

The EPC contract was awarded to NCPP, short for Nebraska City Power Partners, after a comprehensive and rather lengthy selection process (Table 2). The initial project schedule was established early in the process, and the OPPD NC2 team was able to keep the project on schedule; every major milestone was met on time or early. The NCPP team included the well-respected and highly experienced team of Black & Veatch, Gilbert Industrial Corp. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Kiewit Construction Group Inc.), and Zachry Industrial Inc. The key equipment suppliers selected by NCPP are listed in Table 3. By the end of the project, NCPP had issued a total of 228 separate procurement contracts. A significant contributor to the success of the project was the cooperative EPC approach that the OPPD team promoted and NCPP fully embraced. At every significant decision milestone, NCPP allowed the OPPD team to provide input and feedback, which resulted in a very satisfied customer and a great product.

Table 2.    Selecting the right EPC contractor takes time. Source: OPPD


Table 3.    Key vendors for OPPD’s Nebraska City Station Unit 2 project. Source: OPPD