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Carbon Capture Proposed to Save New Mexico Coal Plant

March 3, 2019

The New York-based hedge fund aiming to take over New Mexico’s San Juan Generating Station (SJGS), targeted for closure by state lawmakers, wants to refit the 46-year-old, coal-fired plant to use carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology.

Acme Equities LLC said last week that retrofitting the 847-MW plant with CCS technology would cut carbon emissions by 90% and offer the plant another revenue stream—selling the captured CO₂to help produce oil. Acme is negotiating with local Farmington, N.M., officials to take over the San Juan plant, a major employer in the area, and keep it operating.

Injecting carbon dioxide into older oil fields has been done for years to encourage wells to continue producing oil.

But state lawmakers expressed doubts about the technology even as they pushed a bill (Senate Bill 489) that would close the plant by 2022, limit the financial hit to the plant’s current ownership, and preserve tax revenue for local schools.

Lawmakers wondered about the economic viability of the CCS technology during discussions March 2 with the state’s Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee.…

Groups Reach Deal to Keep New Mexico Coal Plant Open

February 25, 2019

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A private New York-based real estate investment company that focuses on North American energy projects has reached an agreement with officials in Farmington, New Mexico, to keep the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station open beyond 2022.

The city is part-owner of the 847-MW plant, and the other owners—which include Tucson Electric Power, Los Alamos County, and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, along with majority owner Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM)—have said they do not plan to receive power from the SJGS after 2022. The agreement with Acme Equities LLC, a hedge fund founded by Jason Selch in 2012, was reached late February 23, according to a news release from the city.

Farmington officials have worked to find a new operator for the plant after PNM in 2017 said it would close the plant’s two remaining units in 2022, 30 years ahead of schedule. According to a plant fact sheet, PNM owns 46% of the SJGS.

Several California-owned utilities formerly owned some of the plant’s generation, but they ended their ownership agreements in 2017 after 2015 legislation in California required them to divest from coal-fired generation.…

Entergy Texas Breaks Ground on New 993-MW Combined Cycle Plant

February 19, 2019

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Entergy Texas on February 15 began construction of its first new power plant in 40 years. The Montgomery County Power Station (MCPS), located in Willis, will be a 993-MW combined cycle gas turbine plant, adjacent to the existing Lewis Creek Power Plant.

Entergy Texas is part of Entergy Corporation, which provides power to about 3 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The company in a statement said “the facility will provide a new source of reliable, low-cost and clean energy to meet the growing power demand across Southeast Texas.” The plant is expected to enter commercial operation by mid-2021.

Sallie Rainer, president and CEO of Entergy Texas, at Friday’s groundbreaking said, “Southeast Texas is growing, and Entergy Texas needs to invest now to power that growth. By providing reliable, affordable power, we can meet our customers’ needs today, while laying the foundation for future growth across our region.”

Entergy Texas has said the new plant, with cleaner and more efficient combined cycle technology, will save its customers about $ 1.7 billion in energy costs over the next 30 years.…

‘Technically Sophisticated’ Combined Cycle Plant Comes Online

January 16, 2019

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The Lackawanna Energy Center in Pennsylvania entered commercial operation Jan. 15, with the $ 1.5 billion project heralded by its developer, Invenergy, as among the most “technically sophisticated” combined cycle natural gas-fired plants in operation.

The 1,485-MW facility, in the borough of Jessup in Lackawanna County, was completed ahead of schedule and features three General Electric (GE) 7HA.02 high-efficiency, air-cooled natural gas combustion turbines. The facility is expected to provide baseload power to the PJM Interconnection regional transmission organization (RTO) and have the flexibility to respond to spikes in demand, as it balances intermittency on the power grid with the integration of renewables. (A time-lapse video of the plant’s construction is available here.)

“This project is as complicated a combined cycle [plant] as they come,” said Michael Polsky, Chicago-based Invenergy’s founder and CEO, in an interview with POWER. “I think it was pretty remarkable how the Invenergy team and our partners, Kiewit [which build the plant] and GE, did this project, I would say flawlessly.…

Columbia Nuclear Plant Sets Another Generation Record, Credits Good Performance

January 10, 2019

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Operators of the Columbia Generating Station have set a new generation record at the nuclear plant 12 miles north of Richland, Wash., sending more than 9.7 million MWh to the Pacific Northwest power grid during 2018.

The single 1,207-MW single GE-built Mark-2 boiling water reactor that is owned and operated by Energy Northwest—which comprises 26 public power member utilities across Washington state—has set new generation records five out of the past seven years.

Because the plant consistently surpassed generation records set first in 2012 (9.3 TWh), then in 2014 (9.5 TWh), and again in 2016 (9.6 TWh), the plant was a POWER magazine Top Plant in 2017. The plant won the award also due in part to an operations overhaul that began in 2009, when Columbia suffered a series of scrams that landed it on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) radar, and led it to vastly improve its performance.

A Remarkable Cost of Power

The company said in a Jan.…

Tenaska Gas-Fired Plant Comes Online in Pennsylvania

January 2, 2019

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The Tenaska Westmoreland Generating Station began commercial operation on Dec. 21, the latest natural gas-fired facility to enter the PJM market.

The 940-MW Tenaska plant, located near Smithton in South Huntingdon Township in Westmoreland County in southwest Pennsylvania, was built in just more than two years, though its planning and permitting process took several years due to opposition from local residents.

The plant is part of a move toward more gas-fired power in PJM, the largest competitive wholesale U.S. power market. PJM serves customers in 13 states in the eastern U.S., and the District of Columbia.

Gas-fired power surpassed coal-fired generation as the fuel of choice in PJM in 2015, as the price of natural gas dropped below the cost of coal across the region. According to a recent report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), “The monthly average cost of Central Appalachian coal in the PJM region averaged $ 2.76 per million British thermal unit (MMBtu) in 2013 and has only slightly increased since then, most recently averaging 3.30/MMBtu in 2017.”…