Solar turbines provide power for Caterpillar facilities

PEORIA, IL–Three Solar combustion turbines are providing power for the Peoria area’s newest energy facility, a 45 mW cogeneration plant located in Mossville, Ill. The AES Medina Valley cogeneration plant provides electricity, steam, heat and chilled water service to Caterpillar’s Mossville campus and electricity to Caterpillar’s Mapleton Foundry. The Titan 130 combustion turbines, manufactured by Solar Turbines Incorporated, a Caterpillar company, burn natural gas to drive three generators, each producing 12.2 mW of electricity. The turbines provide high thermal efficiency, lowering utility costs and ultimately reducing total operational costs for Caterpillar. In addition to the 45 mW of electricity, the plant can provide up to 410,000 pounds of steam per hour and 7,200 tons per hour of chiller capacity. The chiller plant includes two steam turbine generators rated at 8.9 mW, a York CodePak GED natural gas engine driven chiller, powered by a Cat 3412 engine, and two York electric chillers. Heat from the turbines' exhaust is run through the steam generators to turn water into steam. Caterpillar uses the steam in the winter for heating and manufacturing processes. In the summer, the steam runs through the absorption chillers to provide Caterpillar with chilled water to cool the factory building. The benefits of this collaboration extend far beyond our original expectations. With this state-of-the-art technology, we have lowered utility costs for steam and electricity for an overall operational cost reduction. At the same time, we have improved working conditions, reliability and employee satisfaction,” said Dan Murphy, Vice President of Caterpillar’s Performance Engine Products Division. CILCO, an AES company, and Caterpillar reached a service agreement in December 1999 that resulted in the construction of the $61M AES Medina Valley facility. Construction of the plant began in July of 2000, production of steam and electricity began in May 2001, and the plant began commercial service in September 2001. Using the highly efficient Solar combustion turbines in the new AES Medina Valley cogeneration plant greatly reduces the total amount of emissions. Each Titan 130 turbine is equipped with Solar’s advanced, dry lean-premixed combustion technology, which limits the formation of nitrogen oxides in the exhaust steam and preserves air quality. Carbon monoxide emissions are controlled through the use of catalytic converters. “AES is very pleased to strengthen its ties with Caterpillar by offering a socially responsible distributed generation solution. The AES Medina Valley Cogeneration Plant is expandable and is considered a model for future AES distributed generation plants,” said Tom Thomas, president of AES Medina Valley Cogen, L.L.C. AES is a leading global power company comprised of competitive generation, distribution and retail supply businesses in 29 countries. The company’s generating assets include interests in 181 facilities totaling over 60 gigawatts of capacity. AES’s electricity distribution network has over 920,000 km of conductor and associated rights of way, and sells over 126,000 gigawatt hours per year to over 18 million end-use customers. Its various retail electricity supply businesses sell electricity to over 154,000 end-use customers.