Some industry veterans thought it would be impossible to retrofit FirstEnergy’s W.H. Sammis power plant with state-of-the-art air-quality control systems. The scope and complexity were enormous—compounded by a very confined work area and the need to maintain normal power generation during construction.
Working with two other companies and acting as the owner’s agent, Bechtel successfully installed such a system for the 2,220-megawatt coal-fired power complex, which dramatically reduced gas emissions and met stringent federal standards.
State-of-the-art air-quality control systems
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The Sammis retrofit earned Construction Project of the Year honors at the 2010 Platts Global Energy Awards. Also in 2010, the Sammis effort won a Power Engineering magazine Projects of the Year award in the best coal-fired project category.
Inside the project
We installed three wet flue gas desulfurization units, which remove some 95 percent of sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. These units exhausted to a single 850-foot (nearly 260-meter) chimney with three flues, new booster fans, limestone and gypsum handling makeup and wastewater treatment, flue-gas ductwork, electrical supply and distribution, control-system components, and other support facilities.
The success of this project protected our customer’s huge capital investment as well as the air surrounding it