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Intermountain Power Plant is a large
coal-fired power plant
A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide there are about 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating a gigawatt each. They generate a ...
at Delta, Utah
Delta is the largest city in Millard County, Utah, Millard County, Utah, United States. It is located in the northeastern area of Millard County along the Sevier River and is surrounded by farmland. The population was 3,622 at the 2020 United St ...
, US. It has an installed capacity of 1,900 MW, is owned by the Intermountain Power Agency, and is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal Public utility, utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021–2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of wat ...
.
The plant includes a HVDC
A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating current (AC) transmission systems. Most HVDC links use voltages betwe ...
converter. It is scheduled for replacement in 2025 with an 840 MW natural gas plant, designed to also burn "green hydrogen
Green hydrogen (GH2 or GH2) is hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity. Production of green hydrogen causes significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than production of grey hydrogen, which is derived fr ...
."
Description
The power plant consists of two units each with a generation capacity of 950 MW. Generating units are equipped withGeneral Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston.
Over the year ...
tandem compound steam turbine
A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...
s and Babcock & Wilcox
Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. is an American energy technology and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio. Historically, the company is best known for their stea ...
subcritical boilers.
The boiler houses of Intermountain Power Plant are tall and the flue gas stack
A flue-gas stack, also known as a smoke stack, chimney stack or simply as a stack, is a type of chimney, a vertical pipe, channel or similar structure through which flue gases are exhausted to the outside air. Flue gases are produced when coal, oi ...
is tall. The HVDC Intermountain transmission line
In electrical engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable or other structure designed to conduct electromagnetic waves in a contained manner. The term applies when the conductors are long enough that the wave nature of the transmis ...
runs between Intermountain Power Plant and Adelanto Converter Station in Adelanto, California.
History
Construction on the plant began in September 1981. Commercial operation of unit 1 started in June 1986, and unit 2 in May 1987. The project cost US$4.5 billion. The plant was originally designed for four units; however, only two units were built. In 2004, units 1 and 2 were uprated. These works were conducted by GE andAlstom
Alstom SA () is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional ...
. The Intermountain Power Agency planned to build the third unit of 900 MW capacity. This unit was expected to go online in 2012; however, the project was cancelled after its major purchaser, the city of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, decided to become coal-free by 2020.
On December 28, 2011, one of the generators failed causing the shut-down of one unit for several months.
Natural gas and green hydrogen plant plans
By 2025 the plant is scheduled to be replaced with an 840 MW natural gas plant, at a cost of $865 million, which utility managers state is necessary both to avoid blackouts which could result from the non- dispatchable nature of solar and wind generation, and to ensure operation of thePath 27
Path 27, also called the Intermountain or the Southern Transmission System (STS), is a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electrical transmission line running from the Coal-fired power station, coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant near Delta, Uta ...
HVDC transmission line which brings solar and wind power from Utah to Los Angeles.
The new natural gas fired turbines would be the first of their kind capable of burning a mix of 70% natural gas and 30% "green" hydrogen (hydrogen released by the electrolysis of water
Electrolysis of water is using electricity to Water splitting, split water into oxygen () and hydrogen () gas by electrolysis. Hydrogen gas released in this way can be used as hydrogen fuel, but must be kept apart from the oxygen as the mixture ...
, using renewably generated electricity) when the plant opens in 2025. The plan is to steadily increase the hydrogen percentage to 100% by 2045, which will require upgrading or replacement of the turbines to be able to handle greater percentages of hydrogen. The project was granted a $504 million DOE loan in 2022.
One expert noted in 2019 that using hydrogen to replace natural gas in power-plant turbines was theoretical and had never been done in practice, and a LADWP IPP official stated that the "economics remain to be seen" and "could be quite expensive."
The first major (500MW) hydrogen burning power plant in the US was expected to begin burning 5% hydrogen in Ohio in November 2021, and to migrate to 100% hydrogen over the next decade.
Gallery
See also
* Hydrogen fuel cell power plantReferences
{{Reflist Coal-fired power stations in Utah Buildings and structures in Millard County, Utah Energy infrastructure completed in 1986 Converter stations 1986 establishments in Utah