|
|
 |
|
|
|
In April 1999, Old Dominion
Electric Cooperative announced that it was exploring power-plant
construction options at Marsh Run, located in Fauquier County, near the town
of Remington. This decision came after nearly four years of study and review
regarding possible site selections. The Marsh Run facility will help meet
future peak-electric generation requirements for Old Dominion’s distribution
cooperatives. Peak-electric generation usually is needed by utilities when
electric demands are at their highest, likely on the hottest and coldest
days of the year.
The Marsh Run site is located about 2 miles east of Remington, Va., in Fauquier County. Dominion Virginia Power’s Remington Project is approximately 1 mile from the cooperative project. The Marsh Run site was chosen because of its close proximity to natural gas and electrical transmission lines. Work on the Marsh Run project began June of 2003. The facility is expected to be operational by the summer of 2004. When completed, the facility will consist of three simple-cycle combustion turbines capable of producing 510 megawatts of electricity. A simple-cycle combustion turbine consists of a compressor, turbine and generator. Ambient air is compressed to a higher pressure in the compressor, mixed with fuel and ignited in the combustors, the resulting expanded gas drives the turbine. The turbine turns the generator and electricity is produced. The generation units will burn natural gas as the primary fuel, with low-sulfur fuel oil as a backup source. Gas-fired combustion turbines are ideal because they are able to produce electricity quickly to meet peak-power requirements with low emissions when the demand for electricity is the greatest, like on the hottest and coldest days of the year. Because this facility will be a peak-generation power plant, it will run only the equivalent of 57 days a year. The plant site will consist of three combustion turbines (each with its own stack, generator, and step-up transformer), water storage tank, fuel oil storage tanks, electrical substation, maintenance/office building and other ancillary facilities. The plant is unique in its proposal to use the brown water discharged by the Fauquier County Water and Sanitation Authority. Rather than using ground water, the plant will evaporate the wastewater to increase the output of the turbine and therefore benefit the water quality of the Rappahannock River. As a generation cooperative serving nine member distribution cooperatives in Virginia, Old Dominion’s peak demand on the Virginia Mainland is expected to more than double by 2017, according to integrated resource-planning studies. Because the generation component of Virginia’s electric utility market is deregulating, Old Dominion strongly believes it must secure reasonable and cost-efficient energy sources through contracts, alliances or generating stations to meet its future power supply needs. With more than 362,000 metered cooperative customers on the Virginia mainland, Old Dominion must focus on meeting future peak-generation capacity needs today. Otherwise, individual electric cooperative customers could face a future of higher electric bills and decreased power reliability. The peaking power generated from the Marsh Run facility will be dedicated to the needs of Old Dominion’s nine distribution cooperatives on the Virginia mainland, including Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC) and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative (REC). These cooperatives are two of the 12 member-owners of Old Dominion and serve more than 201,000 customers, or more than 502,000 people, in Central and Northern Virginia. Together, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative and Rappahannock Electric Cooperative have more than 4,900 and 4,500 metered customers, respectively, in Fauquier County. The newsletters below offer additional information on the Marsh Run Project. To view the following .pdf
files, you will need Adobe Acrobat.
|
||
| Top of Page | ||
|
About Us | Our Members
| Energy Choice |
