Port Washington Update
Coal
Plants Demolished; Gas Blocks Under Way
by Elaine Schmidt Wisconsin's $7 billion Power the Future initiative
is changing the face of the lakefront of Port Washington, Wis.
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Between 1932 and 2004, the Port Washington Power Plant received
about 18,000 tons of eastern coal during each month of the shipping season. On
June 19, 2004, the plant took its last delivery. Its two enormous smokestacks
served as beacons for mariners on Lake Michigan for more than 70 years.
But
advances in power generation have rendered the old plant obsolete, and it is being
replaced by two 545-MW, natural-gas-fueled generating units on the same site.
The first unit went into service on July 16 and the second one is under
construction.
"This project consists of two combined-cycle units,"
said Doug Weegin, project manager for Milwaukee-based We Energies, the primary
utility subsidiary of holding company Wisconsin Energy Crop., also in Milwaukee.
The second unit will consist of two combustion turbine generators, two heat-recovery
steam generators and a steam turbine generator.
The overall cost of the
Port Washington project is estimated to cost about $650 million. The balance of
Power the Future funding is being spent at the Oak Creek power plant south of
Milwaukee and transmission upgrades.
In addition to the environmental benefits
of switching to natural gas, the upgrades are necessary because of the potential
for a power shortage in the state.
Deconstructing a
Power Block
The old must go out before the new comes in. The last coal
units of the 70-year-old plant have been retired and were being demolished through
January. The demolition process is more a matter of deconstruction, rather than
traditional demolition.
The first step was removal of any salvageable equipment,
followed by the removal of oil and other substances used in operations, Weegin
said.
With the old plant out of the way, early construction work on the
natural gas units is beginning.
Power Déjà vu "This
[second gas] unit is going to replicate the first one," said Chuck Taylor,
project manager for in the Princeton, N.J., office of Boise-based Washington Group
International, the company providing engineering, procurement and construction
services. Replication stands to be a tremendous advantage for the project.
"We
plan on being a lot more efficient on the second phase of the project because
of lessons learned on the first phase," Taylor added. "We put a formal
program in place to learn from that project."
The program entailed
extensive interviews with people who worked on the construction of the first gas
unit.
"We looked at what we could do better and what we had done right,
so that we could do those things again," Taylor said. The program identified
upwards of 200 items that were cost savings and should be continued, or that should
be changed in order to keep costs down.
One such item that will be continued
on the second unit is the practice of receiving cable precut and bundled by the
suppliers. The cable links one piece of equipment to another.
"On
the first unit the vendor precut and bundled the cable, instead of us having it
delivered bulk and having to cut it in the field," Taylor said. "There
was some risk in having it precut, because if there were any design changes, it
might not have fit and we could have lost money."
Continuity in the
workforce will also be a plus on the second unit.
"We have made a
concerted effort to retain or bring back people who were involved in the first
unit," Taylor said.
Another advantage is the fact that there will
be a working model close at hand to answer any questions that might arise in the
field.
"We have the best model in the world right next door,"
Taylor said. "We Energies is working with us so that we can go next door
and look at it while it's running if we need to."
Site
Concerns But having the working model right next door poses some logistical
problems as well.
The second unit is wedged between the newly constructed first
unit, a stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline and a part of the old coal plant that
was preserved for historical reasons.
There is just one access point to
the site by road, which will present delivery concerns throughout construction.
But the proximity to the lake will end up being an advantage.
"We
will use the lake to bring in the boilers," Taylor said. "They will
bring the ship right up into the harbor and offload the boilers with a large crane."
He
said that it would take at least a week to set up the crane needed for those lifts,
and that off-loading the huge boilers would be "something to see."
The
other big challenge is getting as much work done before the 2006-07 winter sets
in.
"Our goal is to focus on underground piping and electrical installation
first and to get all the foundations in by September and October of this year,"
Taylor said. "That leads us to be able to set the major equipment and about
50 percent of the structural steel in fall and early winter of '06."
The
plant is scheduled to go online on May 2, 2008.
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