Ohio Company Is Retro-Fitting Reactors

by Diana Barnum
Correspondent

Ever work on a catalytic converter of a car? Think bigger. That's what the $105 million-plus contract for the mechanical installation of selective catalytic reduction (SRC) systems that was awarded to Babcock and Wilcox Construction Co., Inc. (B&W) is all about.
"In a nutshell, they (SRC systems) remove nitrogen oxide, which contributes to ground level ozone, from flue-gas of plants," said Steve Stultz, manager of external communications for the Babcock and Wilcox Company. "There are only two or three companies in the industry that do this. Most of the work is retro-fit, putting them on existing power plants."
B&W will place the SRC equipment at two power plants in the Midwestern U.S.: Kyger Creek in Cheshire, OH, and Clifty Creek, in Madison, IN. The project includes installation of structural steel, reinforcement of structural steel, flues, SCR reactor, catalyst, ammonia piping, process piping and service piping, precipitator stiffening and revisions to induced draft fans.
On the jobs will use 85 lifts, approximately 120 tons each. Five 660-ton Demag CC2800s with luffing jib and SuperLift attachments will also be used. Four of them feature 157 feet of main boom and 197 feet of luffer and the fifth has 197 feet of main boom and 177 feet of luffer.
Two Manitowoc 2250 Series 2 cranes will also be on-site, with 160 feet of boom and 130 feet of luffing jib, targeted to set structural steel. And a Manitowoc 2250 with 180 feet of boom and 110 feet of luffer will add power to the lifting jobs that need to be done.
B&W also will have between 100 and 200 smaller lifts, ranging from 20- to 60-tons. They are hoping for another major lift of 700 tons, possibly the new Demag 1,378-ton C8800 crane. This would require another large crawler crane on-site.
They are teaming up with American Electric Power (AEP), Babcock Borsig Power and Siemens Westinghouse for these SCR projects. All are responsible for the engineering, design, procurement, installation, checkout and startup for all work associated with the SCR retrofits.
Kyger Creek plant, owned and operated by Ohio Valley Electric Corp., generates 1,075 megawatts of capacity from five B&W open-pass units. The Clifty Creek plant, owned and operated by Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corp., generates 1,290 megawatts from six units. AEP Pro Serv, Inc., a technical and professional services organization that is a subsidiary of AEP, is project and construction manager for the SCR work for the two pulverized coal-burning plants
Reducing emissions at the plants is a goal, according to David L. Keller, B&W president and chief operating officer.
The team will install SCRs on all five units at Kyger Creek and five of the six units at Clifty Creek. In order for work to be completed by a targeted mid-July 2003, the outage schedule for each unit will vary from seven to nine weeks.

Recent B&W projects include:
• A $27 million contract to supply environmental control equipment to Public Service Co. of Colorado's Cherokee and Valmont Generating Stations.
A $100 million-plus to engineer, design, procure and construct Wygen Unit 1, a complete 80-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Gillette, Wyoming. This is the only new-capacity pulverized-coal-fired power plant under contract in the U.S. at the present time.
• Completion of a 550MW boiler replacement in world-record time (under 22 months) and two large SCRs for a major northeastern United States utility.
• Completion of a full-scale advanced mercury removal technology testing system at 55 MW and 1,300 MW sites in Michigan and Ohio.
• A $130 million environmental contract to supply selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems for a major Canadian utility, a first in Canada.
The Babcock & Wilcox Company is a part of McDermott International, Inc., a leading worldwide energy services company. McDermott subsidiaries manufacture steam-generating equipment, environmental equipment and products for the U.S. government and provide engineering and construction services for the offshore oil and natural gas industries.
B&W boasts these interesting facts:
• Their boilers supply more than 270,000 megawatts of installed capacity in more than 90 countries around the world.
• In the past six years, they have attained approximately 30 percent of the world market for replacement nuclear steam generators and lead the replacement market in the United States.
• Their boilers provide more than 23 % of the world's boiler-powered electricity generation capacity and more than 35 % of the capacity in the U.S.
• They manufactured 50 % of all of the process recovery boilers in operation at pulp and paper mills in North America. Worldwide, about 20 %.
• They earned more awards for flue-gas desulfurization (scrubber) equipment for boilers over 25 MW than any other supplier in the world in calendar year 1996.
• They designed, manufactured and installed the largest single-unit utility boilers in North America, each generating steam for 1,300 MW of electric power.
For more information about retro-fitting reactors, contact The Babcock & Wilcox Company, 20 S. Van Buren Avenue, Barberton, OH 44203-0351. Call: (800) BABCOCK, or fax inquiries to: (330) 860-1886.