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Trades work to clear the air at Consumers Campbell plant

Date Posted: April 1 2005

Consumers Energy's Campbell Generating Complex is in the process of getting more environmentally friendly.

Engineer/constructor Babcock and Wilcox and the building trades are knee-deep in a $350 million project to install air emissions reduction equipment at the coal-burning power plant.

The five-year project to enhance Campbell Unit 3's emissions control capabilities includes installation of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) equipment, which is designed to reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions at the plant. NOx can contribute to the formation of smog during hot summer weather.

Building trades workers will continue to also play a major role in Consumers Energy's strategy to convert plants within its fleet to burn more western coal, which produces less sulfur and is about half the price of eastern coal. Greater utilization of western coal will further reduce sulfur dioxide - a constituent of acid rain - and keep down fuel costs.

"This is a very complex, very labor-intensive, highly engineered project," said Jim Pomaranski, P.E., executive manager for Title I (Clean Air Act) Compliance for Consumers Energy. "This is the largest project we have undertaken at the plant since it opened."

At 1.4 kilowatts, the J.H. Campbell complex is Consumers Energy's largest coal-fired power plant, burning about 3.5 million tons of coal per year. Located along the Lake Michigan shore between Holland and Grand Haven, the Campbell plant began operation in 1962 with the start-up of Unit 1. Unit 2 fired up in 1967, and Unit 3 in 1980. The three turbines at the plant provide enough power for a community of one million people.

Several years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandated coal-burners like the Campbell plant to significantly lower emissions. To date, owners of 110 plants across the nation have chosen to install SCR technology to reduce plant emissions. In the last few years, SCRs were installed at two units at Consumers Energy's Karn-Weadock plant near Bay City. Those SCR units have operated for two ozone seasons and the company said it has seen excellent NOx reduction - 83 percent during the 2004 ozone season.

Consumers and its contractors are building on lessons learned at the Karn-Weadock plant, where the most important construction statistic was that there was only one recordable injury during 524,000 person-hours of work.

"Good safety usually carries over into the schedule and budget," Pomaranski said. "And here we're on schedule and on budget. And the quality of work has been excellent." There are currently 200 construction workers at the Campbell plant.

Since the SCR structure is being built adjacent to the Unit 3 boiler, it can continue operating until it will have to be taken off line prior to the SCR becoming operational in 2007. After the Unit 3 SCR is complete, Consumers will review its continuing regulatory compliance strategy to determine what additional emissions control equipment needs to be installed, when and where. Overall, the utility will spend $800 million at the Campbell plant alone on SCR construction.

"This project is a reflection of where environmental policy and government regulations meet," said Jim Coddington, Consumers Energy's vice president of fossil operations. "As a company and industry, we're working hard to play our part in continuing the nearly 30-year trend of helping improve the nation's air quality year by year. It's a worthwhile effort that requires a tremendous investment to balance the environmental benefit with the economic reality that energy costs need to be kept as affordable as possible."


DUCT WORK for the new selective catalytic reduction system is hoisted into place at the Consumers Energy Campbell Generating Complex. Photos by William Fleury