Bechtel Gets Contract for Prairie State Campus

St. Louis-based Peabody Energy has announced that San Francisco-based Bechtel Power Corp. was named to receive a $2.9 billion engineering, procurement, construction and management agreement for the Prairie State Energy Campus in Lively Grove, Ill.

Bechtel has an agreement in place with the Southwestern Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council for plant construction and commenced preliminary foundation work at the site in late May. Initial craft hiring will begin this summer with full civil work under way in the fall. The project schedule is planned to be four years.

As part of the EPCM contractor, Prairie State has signed purchase orders with Babcock & Wilcox Co. for a boiler system; Toshiba International Corp. for the turbines; and Siemens Power Generation Inc. for emission controls. These technologies will allow Prairie State to achieve high efficiencies and generate additional power, Peabody says.

Prairie State will be a 1,600-MW supercritical, coal-fueled power plant.

New to the Prairie State equity partner group is the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency in conjunction with adding the city of Naperville to the agency’s membership. The four existing partners have increased their equity ownership positions.

Partner commitments have reached 1,000 MW, with another 300 MW expected to be added. Late-state discussions are under way with a number of interested equity partners, and Peabody expects ownership of 5%.

Construction is expected to create about 2,000 skilled jobs at the park of the four-year process and inject more than $560 million into the Illinois economy, according to a study by Southern Illinois University. Prairie State will create more than 450 jobs and inject nearly $100 million in economic benefits into the regional economy each year, according to the same study.

Illinois, Indiana Reach
Agreement on Tolls

Officials from Illinois and Indiana have announced an agreement on removing barriers to equal treatment for Illinois I-PASS customers.

Members of the Indiana Toll Road Oversight Board recently voted to rescind a plan to limit electronic toll collection discounts to Indiana iZoom users, and directed Indiana Toll Road Operator ITR Concessions Co. to make the discount available to passenger vehicle drivers, regardless of type of transponder or state of residency.

The Illinois Tollway issued a request in April that Indiana and ITR provide not only I-PASS users—but also all E-ZPass users—the same 40% discount promised to iZoom subscribers. In addition, the Illinois Tollway requested that no additional steps be required on the part of the customer to register or sign up to participate in the discount.

“Over the past few months we have stood by our belief that it makes no sense to force stateline drivers to purchase two different transponders in order to benefit from the convenience of electronic toll collection and a discounted toll rate for interstate travel,” said Illinois Tollway Executive Director Brian McPartlin. “We are pleased Indiana has reconsidered their position and decided to offer our I-PASS users the same level of customer service with no strings attached.”

The Illinois Tollway said it will work closely with ITR and the Indiana Department of Transportation throughout 2007 as ITR introduces their new transponder iZoom and electronic tolling to the entire Indiana Toll Road.