Utah, Arizona utilities are powered up to deal with summer heat
By Steven Oberbeck, The Salt Lake Tribune -- July 10
Temperatures are rising but for many of the state's municipal power companies, this season promises to be a lot more pleasant than the past few summers.
That means power company executives in those cities will stay cooler under
the collar this summer because they no longer will have to sweat where the
necessary electricity will come from to keep their systems running.
"The 17 cities that got together to build the Nebo plant should be able
to use almost all of the electricity this new facility can produce," said
Jackie Coombs, spokeswoman for the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, or
UAMPS. "If any power is left over, though, they will be able to sell it on
the open market or to other UAMPS members."
The Nebo plant is a "combined cycle facility." It uses a combustion
turbine generator similar to a jet engine to produce electricity. Instead of jet
fuel, though, the turbine uses natural gas with the exhaust heat producing steam
to run an additional generator.
Leon Fredrickson of Springville Power, which owns the rights to up to 18
megawatts of the plant's output, said that city decided to participate in
construction of the Nebo plant in response to the volatile prices of electricity
in 2000 and 2001.
Springville Power wanted to lessen its reliance on open market purchases of
electricity it might need in times of high demand, Fredrickson said. "And
we wanted to make sure we had access to a stable supply of power at a consistent
cost."
The Nebo plant, however, will get fired up only when it is less expensive for
the cities to generate electricity from natural gas than it is to buy power on
the open market. "We are not going to start that plant up when it isn't
economical to do so," Fredrickson said.
Over the past several weeks since the plant has become operational, it has
run only a few times. However, as temperatures and the demand for electricity
rise, pushing up the market price of power, the plant is expected to be used a
lot more, Coombs said.
The 17 UAMPS members that participated in building the plant also include
Kaysville, Lehi, Logan, Payson, St. George, Ephraim, Fairview, Hurricane, Hyrum,
Monroe, Mount Pleasant, Santa Clara, Spring City, Washington and the Strawberry
Electric Service District cooperative.
The engineering firm of CH2M Hill designed the plant as a subcontractor to
Colorado Energy Management, which will operate the plant and maintain it.
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