Air Pollution Control Equipment Services Keephills 3 Nears Completion With about three months left of major construction to be completed, one of Canada’s most advanced coal-fired power generation facilities is entering the start-up phase. Clarion Energy Content Directors 7.1.2010 Share By Brian Wheeler, Associate Editor With about three months left of major construction to be completed, one of Canada’s most advanced coal-fired power generation facilities is entering the start-up phase. The Keephills 3 (K3) plant, west of Edmonton, has been a work-in-progress for TransAlta Corp. and Capital Power since the first holes were dug on-site in March 2007. After moving an estimated 1.6 million feet of dirt, the steel frame was erected in 2008. And as of April this year, after 22,000 welds, the boiler installation is completed. Project manager for Capital Power Dave Conlin said the plant has labor intensive work yet to be completed, such as installing insulation and small board piping, but the plant is receiving power and TransAlta plans on synchronizing to the power grid by this fall. But the construction process did have one problem that set the completion behind schedule. “Labor availability has been our biggest challenge in terms of being able to keep things going on track here,” said Conlin. Due to a construction boom in 2008 in Alberta there were just not enough trade workers to complete the steel frame erection. Capital Power was forced to bring in workers from surrounding provinces, particularly Quebec, to complete the steel assembly. Along with setting Capital Power back in terms of the completion schedule, the move ended up costing more as well. Even today, around 10 percent of the 1,600-person workforce is from out-of-province. The site of the 450 MW coal-fired plant is the same location as the existing Keephills 1 and 2 facilities. When online, K3 will also use the on-site mine, Highvale. Covering almost 30,000 acres, the Highvale mine is the largest surface strip coal mine in Canada and supplies the Sundance and Keephills facilities with sub-bituminous coal. In operation since 1970, the Highvale mine produces some 13 million tons of coal each year. Upon the completion of K3, Highvale will be required to produce an additional 1.8 million tons each year. TransAlta is currently opening new mines and just completed a dragline that will help supply coal for the Keephills generating plant until 2020. The power plant’s foundations were constructed with fly-ash from the existing Genesee Generating station. Every ton of fly-ash used in place of Portland cement in concrete saves about a ton of CO2 that would be emitted in the production of conventional cement. Hitachi Canada provided the supercritical boiler and supercritical pressure turbine, which were shipped to Canada from Japan. The supercritical pressure technology reduces CO2 emissions by 18 percent and will operate at 39.5 percent efficiency. The coal will burn at 1,050 degrees F and the cooling process is provided by an 18-cell cooling tower. With a dry scrubbing system, K3 will have to stay under 0.2 lb/mBtu for SO2, 0.16 lb/mBtu for NOX and 0.023 lb/mBtu for other particulates under the 2006 Alberta Air Emissions Standards for Electricity Generation. Unlike the four Wabamun units being retired by TransAlta in 2010, K3 will emit approximately 60 to 80 percent less SO2, NOX and mercury and 24 percent less CO2 while producing the same amount of power. “Our limits are such that our spray dryer technology is the most effective way,” said Conlin. The flue gas desulfurization system was provided by Babcock & Wilcox. Modeling the plant after the 2005 commissioned Genesee 3 plant, K3 is equipped with low-NOX burners. Conlin said the plant does not need any additional catalytic material to reduce NOX emissions, but can be retrofitted if necessary in the future. “We try to make sure that the technology we are building is well proven and that it will be reliable.” TransAlta and Capital Power, with help from Alstom and the Alberta government, are currently undergoing FEED studies on the facility. They are looking into the option of adding a carbon capture unit. If added, the carbon capture would not be full stream, but would be a 30 percent sub-stream system. The plant will also have a mercury capture unit to keep the mercury emissions below the limit of 8 kg/TWh. All parts of the facility will enter the unit testing phase after connecting to the power grid. When TransAlta is in control of operations after completion, Conlin said they will be in commercial operation by the second quarter. And once online, K3 will provide 60 to 70 full time jobs. Split in half between TransAlta and Capital Power, the total cost for the Keephills 3 facility is $1.9 billion. More Power Engineering Issue Articles Power Engineerng Issue Archives View Power Generation Articles on PennEnergy.com Related Articles 8 Rivers, Siemens Energy collaborate on gas turbine decarbonization Indiana’s consumer advocate wants to thwart Duke Energy’s carbon capture study Calpine, DOE enter cost share agreement for Houston carbon capture demonstration Installing carbon capture in Utah would be tough. But is that debate missing the point?
