POWER August 2010 - 26

2010 PLANT OF THE YEAR
2010 PLANT OF THE YEAR
Luminant's Oak Grove
Power Plant Earns
POWER 's
Highest Honor
Luminant used remnants of the ill-fated Twin Oaks and Forest Grove plants (which
were mothballed more than 30 years ago) to build the new two-unit 1,600-MW Oak
Grove Plant. Though outfitted with equipment from those old plants, Oak Grove also
sports an array of modern air quality control equipment and is the nation's first 100%
lignite-fired plant to adopt selective catalytic reduction for NOx control and activated
carbon sorbent injection technology to remove mercury. For melding two different
steam generators into a single project, adopting a unique and efficient " push-pull " fuel
delivery system, assembling a tightly integrated team that completed the project on
time and within budget, and for completing what was started almost four decades ago,
Oak Grove Power Plant is awarded POWER magazine's 2010 Plant of the Year award.
By Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
L
uminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future
Holdings Corp. (EFH)-which owns
competitive and regulated energy subsidiaries
in Texas-is the largest electricity generator
in Texas. To Luminant's credit, it took
the hard road of constructing solid fuel plants
instead of making the default decision to build
more gas-fired generation when demand for
electricity rose. With its three-plant program
nearing completion, Luminant's 18,300-MW
portfolio remains the best balanced of any
Texas generation company: about 8,000 MW
each of coal-fired and natural gas-fired capacity
and the remainder supplied by its 2,300MW
Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.
Luminant also has 900 MW of wind capacity
under contract and a public commitment to increase
that number to 1,500 MW, making it
the largest wind power purchaser in Texas and
the nation's fifth-largest purchaser.
The type and amount of installed capacity
is a good way to compare different genera26
tion
companies, but so are actual generation
statistics. In the Electric Reliability Council
of Texas (ERCOT) market, which represents
about 75% of the electricity generation in the
state, 70% of the electricity delivered is fired
by natural gas and only 18% by coal. Luminant,
on the other hand, used coal to fuel 67%
of the megawatt-hours it generated in 2009.
Next was nuclear (29%). Gas-fired generation
(4%) filled in the gaps.
The stats clearly show that Luminant has a
long history of using solid fuels and running
its plants with high capacity factors. In addition,
its plant operating staff are experts at
squeezing low-cost electricity from lignite, a
difficult coal to process and burn efficiently.
In 2005, when Luminant (then TXU Power,
a subsidiary of TXU Corp.) determined that
additional generation was needed to meet expected
load growth, it was only natural that
the company would turn again to lignite.
You may recall TXU's ill-fated plans to conwww.powermag.com
struct
11 new coal-fired units in 2006: Those
plans immediately met a storm of opposition.
After EFH, a consortium of private equity investors,
purchased TXU for $45 billion in October
2007, it quickly scaled back the 11-plant
program to a more palatable three-plant program
that included Sandow 5 (completed September
2009) and the two units at Oak Grove
( " substantial completion " December 2009 and
June 2010). The cost of these three plants is
reported at $3.25 billion.
The other smart move EFH made was striking
a deal with the Environmental Defense
Fund and the Natural Resources Defense
Council to put their stamps of approval on
the three-plant deal. Later, in 2008, a similar
arrangement was reached with the Sierra
Club on mercury emission reductions to avoid
costly litigation. These deals recognized and
followed the company's voluntary commitment
to offset more than 100% of nitrogen oxide
(NOx
), sulfur dioxide (SO2
), and mercury
POWER | August 2010
Courtesy: Luminant, photo by Allison V. Smith

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POWER August 2010

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