The California Energy Commission January 16 approved the 120 MW Starwood-Midway Power Plant Project near Mendota in Fresno County. It will provide peaking power to Pacific Gas & Electric beginning May 2009 under a 15-year contract. The project, consisting of two natural gas-fired combustion turbine generators, will be constructed next to two existing peakers and near PG&E’s Panoche Substation. The 400 MW Panoche Energy Center is proposed for construction immediately southwest of the Panoche Substation under a separate licensing proceeding before the commission. Starwood-Midway expects to operate the new plant about 400 hours per year during periods of peak power demand, typically on hot summer days. However, the peaker will be available under PG&E’s power purchase agreement for up to 4,000 hours per year. The contract enables the utility to dispatch power from each of the units into the grid as system conditions require. The peaker is set to connect to PG&E’s transmission system via an existing 115-kV tie-line between the CalPeak Panoche peaker to the Panoche Substation. The power would be distributed to PG&E’s grid via transmission lines from the Panoche Substation. The Starwood plant’s natural gas fuel supply is from PG&E’s gas trunk pipeline. However, air pollution concerns remain. The peaker plant is set to be located in a “serious non-attainment” area for federal and state ambient air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter. To minimize production of nitrogen oxide emissions, a precursor to ozone and particulate pollution, the peaker plans to inject water into the combustion turbine combustors and install a selective catalytic reduction system and inlet cooling foggers. The project owner must obtain NOx offsets, install a continuous emissions monitoring system, and report NOx emissions. In December, the commission approved licensing for the 400 MW Panoche Energy Center. The commission is reviewing a third proposed project in Fresno County, the 565 MW Community Power Plant Project in Parlier.
