Plant

PPL Global, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania based PPL Corp.announced plans to build a 600 MW natural gas-fired generationplant on Long Island, NY. The proposed $300 million facility willbe located on a 15 acre site in Smithtown, which is currently beingused as a sand and gravel operation. PPL Global is planning tobuild up to 12 gas-fired units for this project. “With thecontinued growth of Long Island, there is an acknowledged need foradditional competitive electricity sources. These proposed unitswill provide significant additional electricity to these residentsin a way that is environmentally and aesthetically sensitive forarea residents and cost effective for PPL Global,” said PaulChampagne, PPL Global president. The facility site is positionednear the Iroquois pipeline, as well as other major transmissionlines. Pending approvals from state and local agencies,ground-breaking is expected to begin in 2001, with an approximateoperational date of June, 2002.

The planned capacity additions announced by merchant power plantdevelopers for the U.S. market have more than tripled in less thantwo years, confirming that power suppliers are “aggressivelyresponding” to market demands for more generation and greatersystem reliability, according to the Electric Power SupplyAssociation (EPSA).

Unexpected delays have prompted Koch Gateway to postpone thestart of maintenance at the Baxter Wilson Power Plant measuringstation until May 30. The work previously had been scheduled tostart Monday (May 22) and last five days. No nominations at thepoint will be accepted during this maintenance.

El Paso said a shutdown of the Blanco (NM) Plant starting June 5represents the largest annual outage on its system, impacting about15% of normal total throughput. There will be zero flow throughBlanco for about four hours on June 5. Thereafter the IMOITRKA (BRValverde) point can flow at its normal rate, but the net reductionof San Juan Basin capacity for the day will be 600 MMcf/d. Duringthe June 5-9 period maintenance on Blanco’s C and D plants will cutSan Juan capacity by 500 MMcf/d. A June 5-14 outage of the Gallup(NM) Station essentially will have no additional impact whileBlanco is down, but will result in a 250 MMcf/d San Juan cutbackJune 10-14. Combined pipeline and compressor maintenance betweenthe Leupp and Flagstaff Stations in Arizona will reduce NorthMainline capacity by 500 MMcf/d June 5, 400 MMcf/d June 6 and 210MMcf/d June 7. See the El Paso bulletin board for details of othermaintenance planned during June.

Expanding its potential reach as a merchant power plantdeveloper/operator, San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. announced itis going after the high-tech and telecommunications industries’growing need for reliable, high-quality electricity by offeringdistributed generation with back-up reliability services. It has a30-MW unit about to be unveiled for an undisclosed customer andseveral other units in the queue, according to the Calpineexecutive heading its new “c*Power” business unit.

Coastal Gas Gathering and Processing experienced a fire Thursdayat its Dragon Trail (CO) Plant that caused one injury and limitedreceipts into Northwest, Questar, CIG and Public Service Co. ofColorado. Dragon Trail throughput was reduced temporarily to zeroFriday but was being restored by that afternoon, a spokesman said.Full output was expected to be reached by Friday night or Saturday,he said.

As polluting utilities were preparing to fight a broadEnvironmental Protection Agency emissions-reduction edict issuedlast week, they were hit with an appeals court decision upholdingan earlier EPA order on the same subject – nitrogen oxide (NOx)emissions.

As polluting utilities were preparing to fight a broadEnvironmental Protection Agency emissions-reduction edict issuedlast week, they were hit with an appeals court decision upholdingan earlier EPA order on the same subject — nitrogen oxides (NOx)emissions.

GreenMountain.com, a retail electricity marketer with a penchantfor things environmental, will plant a tree in honor of allPennsylvanians who use its “Tree-Free Billing” program —otherwise known as an Internet account.