Start 16: Sheboygan Falls Energy Facility
Cost: $150 million

Construction of the Sheboygan Falls Energy Facility began in June 2004, and the facility will be finished in June 2005.

The facility will be leased under a long-term agreement to Madison-based Wisconsin Power & Light, an Alliant subsidiary.

The plant will be a 300-MW, simple cycle, natural gas-fired generating facility.

It will employ two 150-MW combustion turbines.

According to Alliant Energy, another turbine may be added in the future to increase the facility's generation capability to 450 MW.

The plant will operate less than 10 percent of the time, or a maximum of 1,795 hours a year. It is designed for peak-time usage, which means it will typically operate during hot summer afternoons.

The project's designer and construction manager is Burns & McDonnell, an engineering and construction management company in Kansas City, Mo.

The Boldt Co. of Appleton will perform the project's underground utilities and foundation work. The foundations will hold the turbines, generators, auxiliary equipment and the turbine building enclosure.

About 7,000 cu. yds. of concrete was poured in a three-month schedule, and fly ash was incorporated in the ground to help stabilize the foundations.

Delivering a Power Plant

Dave Rudolf, Boldt senior project manager, said the bulk and weight of power generation equipment presented some delivery concerns.

"Getting some of the major, heavy generating equipment out to the site was as issue because of road restrictions and availability of rail sidings," he said. "With heavy loads like that, if you don't have a rail siding, you have to get it to the site by truck and that can be difficult."

He said that bridges along the delivery route were reinforced to ensure they would handle the equipment weight. Wisconsin troopers were brought in to close Highway 57 to traffic while the over-sized equipment was en route.

The facility is located on 15 acres of a 40-acre site that Alliant purchased from Power Ventures generation, a subsidiary of Burns & McDonnell.

The construction is part of a plan to lessen the state's need to buy power from out-of-state producers in times of heavy demand.

With two other facilities already online, the Sheboygan facility will allow Wisconsin Power & Light to meet peak demands with power generated in-state for the first time since the mid-1990s.

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