Power Company’s Move to Beef Up Local Presence Bodes Well for Region
business, electricity, utilities,
They do things big in Texas, and the Coleto Creek Power Station’s planned expansion is no exception.
Following final state approval, International Power will build Coleto Creek 2, a 650-megawatt electric generating unit at the facility. The $1.5 billion unit will provide electricity for south Texas, producing enough power every hour for an estimated 500,000 homes, according to International Power. It will join the complex’s existing unit, a 632-megawatt producer.
The coal-fueled plant will utilize environmentally advanced pollution-control technology to reduce emissions, making it more eco-friendly than many of its conventional coal-using brethren. Its environmental impact also will be strictly regulated, as the state has set emissions for key pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, mercury and other matter at extremely low levels. The plant also will be built to be carbon-capture ready, so that eventually it can be retrofitted with equipment that will further reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
If all goes according to plan, the new unit will come online by late 2014 or early 2015, but even now its economic impact is being felt throughout the region as International Power prepares to hire construction workers, and begins to look at staffing needs down the road when the unit is up and running.
“We’re still in the permitting process, but we should have all that done by spring 2010,” says Mike Fields, director of business development for International Power. “We’ll be selecting a contractor for the work by the beginning of 2010, and hopefully be under construction by later in the year.”
Projects like this have immediate and long-term impact due to their sheer size. The five-year construction period will see more than 1,000 craft workers employed at the site, which represents one of the largest and most ambitious ever for International Power. And once the facility is up and running, it will need about 72 direct and indirect workers just for the new unit, a number that could increase as both units are updated and reconfigured with new technology, Fields says.
“We’ll be working closely with our partner in the project, South Texas Electric Cooperative, which is headquartered nearby in Nursery,” Fields says. “They’ll be helping us with our staffing needs as the project moves along.”
The STEC supplies wholesale power to eight member cooperatives, providing electricity to more than 170,000 households in 65 counties throughout south Texas. International Power provides more than 33,000 megawatts of electric and thermal energy in 20 countries around the world. While they are very diverse entities, the partnership with International Power has been beneficial to both it and the cooperative, Fields says, as it has allowed for a strong local presence to establish good working relations as this major project has moved forward.
“We’ve had wonderful support from the local communities, and we think that will continue once people can really see something start to happen with construction,” Fields says. “Everyone is really getting enthused about the project.”
Story by Joe Morris
