17 EDT Monday

559 megawatts of power hits grid today

The largest power plant yet to go on line in California this summer is generating power today.

Calpine Corp. says its 559-megawatt Los Medanos Energy Center in the Contra Costa County city of Pittsburg is just the second major combined-cycle facility to be licensed and built in California in over a decade. As a cogeneration facility, the project also delivers electricity and steam for use in industrial processing.

San Jose-based Calpine broke ground on the power plant in September 1999. More than 600 construction and trade personnel worked on the project over a 20-month period. During the past several months, the project scheduled two 10-hour shifts, seven days a week to get the plant operating as soon as possible. And over the past several weeks, technical teams worked round the clock to complete the facility, Calpine says.

The total cost of construction is estimated to be approximately $350 million

http://sacramento.bcentral.com/sacramento/stories/2001/07/09/daily2.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 09, 2001

Answers

What a misleading piece of information this is. It will take time for this plant to work up to its 559 megawatt capacity. They don't merely come on line and blow full capacity just like that. By the time they are going full blast the hot spell season will be over.

-- Billiver (billiver@aol.com), July 10, 2001.

Even if this plant was running at 100% tomorrow, it is still only 550 mw, and total capacity added this year has been about 1500 mw. We had a capacity shortfall of 4,000 to 5,000 mw at the beginning of this year. So, in spite of the happy-face news, TPTB are still saying we aren't out of the woods for another year or two.

-- Margaret J (mjans01@yahoo.com), July 10, 2001.