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Currant Creek Output Nearly Doubles

Posted on: Saturday, 22 April 2006, 03:03 CDT

By Steven Oberbeck, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Apr. 22--Utah Power has kicked its Currant Creek plant near Mona into high gear.

The power company has fired up the second stage of the $345 million natural-gas-fired facility. Currant Creek now is capable of producing enough electricity to light up nearly 270,000 Utah homes.

"We've had the Currant Creek plant -- including the second stage -- on line a number of times during the past several weeks," Utah Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen said. "And that is what is great about Currant Creek. On days when the demand for electricity is high, the plant can respond quickly to meet the needs of our customers."

Utah Power first brought Currant Creek on line in June to help it deal with the soaring demand for energy during the summer air conditioning season. At that time, though, the plant was capable of producing only 280 megawatts of electricity from two natural-gas-powered turbines.

The second phase of the plant's construction was marked by the addition of a steam turbine powered by waste heat given off by the two natural-gas-powered turbines. The second phase increased the plant's generating capacity by 245 megawatts.

"We initially brought Currant Creek up as a 'simple-cycle' facility [that generated power just from the two gas-fired turbines] to help us address the expected demand for electricity last summer," Eskelsen said. "But from now on, it will be run as a combined-cycle system" generating electricity from both the gas-fired and steam-powered turbines.

Currant Creek was the first major power plant capable of producing more than 300 megawatts of electricity to be built in the state since the early 1980s.

Utah Power, however, isn't done constructing new power plants. In late 2004, the company received permission from the Public Service Commission to proceed with construction of a proposed $330 million Lake Side Power Plant on property in Utah County formerly owned by the now-bankrupt Geneva Steel.

Denver's Summit Energy, operating as Summit Vineyard LLC, is building the plant for Utah Power, which anticipates taking over ownership of the 534-megawatt facility once construction is completed. The plant is expected to begin generating electricity in the summer of 2007.

Another company also is working toward building a power plant that it hopes will eventually be used to help address the needs of Utah's electricity-hungry consumers.

Spring Canyon Energy, a Dallas-based power-plant developer, has its eye on building a natural-gas-fired plant on property it controls that is less than a mile from Utah Power's Currant Creek plant.

A year ago, the PSC instructed Spring Canyon and Utah Power to try and negotiate a contract that would allow the Texas company to provide the utility with 100 megawatts of electricity. Those negotiations, however, failed to result in an agreement.

"We're still planning on moving forward and are keeping our options open," said Dave Graeber, president of Spring Canyon Energy.

"We're confident that we'll eventually build that plant, but we probably won't be selling any of the output to Utah Power."

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Copyright (c) 2006, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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SPI, SPW,

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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