Springerville Generating Station Expansion
The addition of two new units to TEP's Springerville Generating Station (SGS) will more than double the plant's output, expanding the availability of coal-fired power in a region where energy demands are on the rise.
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SGS Unit 3 is under construction and on track for completion during the third quarter of 2006. Construction of SGS Unit 4 will begin later this year, with commercial operation scheduled for late 2009.
The two new 400-MW units will complement the two existing 380-MW units at the eastern Arizona site. TEP will operate all four units, and their output will be divided among TEP, Phoenix-based Salt River Project (SRP) and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a wholesale power cooperative.
Construction of Unit 3 is more than 97 percent complete. The $939-million project is proceeding smoothly under the direction of project contractor Bechtel, which is working under a lump-sum, turnkey engineering, procurement and construction contract. Through April 2006, crews had logged more than 3.9 million work hours on Unit 3 without a single lost-time accident.
Tri-State will lease the completed third unit from a financial owner and control its output. SRP will purchase 100 MW from the unit under a 30-year contract with Tri-State, while TEP will purchase up to 100 MW from Tri-State for up to five years.
SRP will own Unit 4 and use its output to help meet growing customer needs and as a hedge against natural gas price volatility. Construction cost for the unit is estimated at between $600 million and $650 million.
Both new units will use best available control technologies and equipment to limit emissions, including dry scrubbers for sulfur dioxide reduction, selective catalytic reduction and low NOx burners to control nitrogen oxides, and baghouses to capture particulates. Fly ash and bottom ash - byproducts from the coal combustion process - will be collected and stored on-site in sealed landfill facilities.
As part of the expansion project, emissions control improvements have been made to SGS Units 1 and 2. Crews upgraded the sulfur dioxide scrubber systems and installed improved low-nitrogen oxide burners on those units. With this equipment in place, total emissions from all four SGS units will be significantly less than previous emissions from the two existing units.
