Ameren, Dominion Spend Billions on Plant, Reliability Improvements

Last week, Ameren Corp. and Dominion Virginia Power separately issued statements claiming the utilities had spent billions on improvements to existing power plants.

Ameren Completes $1B Improvements at Ill. Coal Plants

Ameren Corp., a company that serves more than 2 million customers in Missouri and Illinois, said last week that it had spent more than $1 billion on environmental improvements at coal-fired power plants in Illinois.

Projects included the 36-month installation of a scrubber and electrostatic precipitator at the Duck Creek Power Plant, near Canton, Ill., and a scrubber on Unit 1 of Coffeen Plant, near Coffeen, Ill. The company said it was working on completing another scrubber and electrostatic precipitator within the first quarter of 2010 on Unit 2 of the Coffeen Plant.

In 2009, Ameren also installed activated carbon injection systems at the E.D. Edwards Plant, at its Meredosia Plant near Jacksonville, Ill.; at Newton Plant, in Jasper County, Ill.; and at the Joppa (Ill.) Power Plant (an Electric Energy Inc. plant that is 80% owned by Ameren). Activated carbon injection systems use powdered activated carbon to absorb oxidized mercury from flue gases. The mercury is then collected with the fly ash in the plant’s particulate collection device.

According to the company, these initiatives followed installation of a range of combustion control technologies like low-nitrogen oxide burners. Between 2001 and 2003, Ameren’s merchant generation operators also installed selective catalytic reduction units at both plants, and in 2003, a selective catalytic reduction unit was installed at the E. D. Edwards Plant in Bartonville, Ill.

Dominion Invests $4B to Expand Electric Reliability

Dominion Virginia Power claimed it spent some $4 billion over three years to improve and expand electric reliability to its 2.3 million customers—mainly to increase generating capacity and keep up with growing demand.

The company—which is adding new gas-fired units, a hybrid coal power station, and renewable power sources—also said it had made improvements to older stations to reduce their emissions. Investments of more than $2 billion on advanced pollution-control equipment would help the company reduce emissions and meet new, more stringent environmental requirements, CEO Paul D. Koonce said in a letter to customers last week.

Last year Dominion Virginia Power ”reconditioned over 350 miles of electrical circuits, including installing more than 1,000 new poles, 3,500 new lightning arrestors and other devices,” Koonce said. The company was also committed to meeting Virginia’s goal of achieving 15% of its electricity sales from renewable sources in 2025 and to reducing the growth in customer demand for electricity by 10% over the next 12 years.

Sources: Ameren, Dominion