Kansas City, Mo., August 9, 2002 — Black & Veatch and Kiewit Industrial Co. (KBV), have completed engineering, procurement, construction and startup services for a combined-cycle power plant located in Tacoma, Wash.
The plant is owned by Frederickson Power, L.P., and was built to meet increased energy demand in the Pacific Northwest. Upgrades enabled the plant to achieve an overall 3 percent efficiency improvement. While KBV added numerous upgrades to the power plant, the project team completed the job 19 days ahead of schedule.
Plant design improvements included modifications to the heat recovery steam generator’s reheat coils to accommodate increased outlet energy of the combustion turbine. The project team also adapted the bypass designs, steam systems and condenser to eliminate steam injection for nitrous oxide control and added an evaporative cooler.
Completion of the project was originally slated for December 1996, but work was suspended in 1995. When work resumed, the KBV team was presented with several unique challenges.
The scope of the project was to complete the plant, which had been 80 percent designed and 40 percent constructed prior to the suspension. This meant the design and procurement of equipment for the plant systems had to be changed to accommodate different combustion and steam turbines as well as new permit and code requirements.
“KBV’s ability to develop innovative designs that worked in conjunction with an existent framework was paramount to the success of the project,” said Frederickson Power, L.P. Project Manager Richard D’Amato, “They exceeded expectations not only in a timely and economical manner, but through the quality of their work.”
The natural gas-fueled, one-on-one combined-cycle plant consists of a General Electric (GE) 7FA gas turbine generator and one GE reheat, single low-pressure steam admission, condensing, axial exhaust steam turbine generator. It also includes a Nooter-Erickson three-pressure, reheat heat recovery steam generator and has a total nominal capacity of 249 megawatts.
“To be successful, teamwork was imperative,” said Black & Veatch Project Manager Kerry Erington. “It truly enabled us to complete the project and accommodate the required changes ahead of the original schedule. It also provided us with an excellent opportunity to utilize and highlight our design expertise.”
The plant achieved commercial operation last month.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch Corporation is a global engineering, construction and consulting company specializing in infrastructure development in the fields of energy, water and information.
Founded in 1915, Black & Veatch serves its clients with conceptual and preliminary engineering services, engineering design, procurement, construction, financial management, asset management, information technology, environmental, security design and consulting, and management consulting services.
Headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., the employee-owned company’s Web site address is www.bv.com.
About Frederickson Power, L.P.
Frederickson Power, L. P. (FPLP) is a partnership between Westcoast Power Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Duke Energy, and EPCOR Power Development Corporation (EPDC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Edmonton-based EPCOR Utilities Inc.
An agreement, subject only to final regulatory approval which is expected in early August, will result in EPDC being sole owner of FPLP. More information about EPCOR and its subsidiary companies can be found at www.epcor.ca.
About Kiewit Industrial Co.
Kiewit has been in the construction business in the United States since 1884. Kiewit has built virtually all types of projects for both public and private owners. In the last five years, Kiewit has averaged approximately $4 billion in annual construction revenues each year.
In May 2001, Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc. was ranked 7th in the Engineering News Record list of the 400 largest contractors in the United States. In the last twenty years, Kiewit has performed construction work on power projects totaling approximately 12,000 megawatts in generation capacity. Most current projects are performed by Kiewit on a full-service EPC/turnkey basis.
