Energy in the News

By: John Downey 

Duke Energy Carolinas wants to build a 600- to 800-megawatt gas-fired plant in Rockingham County that would begin producing power in 2011.

The company also plans to expand the size of an already-proposed gas plant in Rowan County, boosting it to as much as 800 megawatts from 600.

In each case, the capacity would be comparable to the 800 megawatts to be generated by Duke's proposed coal-fired unit at its Cliffside plant on the border of Cleveland and Rutherford counties.

The Charlotte-based utility declines to disclose its projected cost for the gas plants. But based on U.S. Department of Energy estimates and recent costs for combined-cycle gas plants such as those proposed by Duke, the price for each plant could range from $360 million to $480 million.

In filings this week with N.C. regulators, Duke said it will seek state approval in the fall for a gas-fired turbine generator at its Dan River Steam Station in Rockingham County and an upgrade of the gas unit planned for the Buck Steam Station in Rowan.

Duke spokeswoman Marilyn Lineberger says the utility hopes to gain approval of the projects in the spring. The company plans to start construction at the Buck site -- on the Yadkin River three miles east of Spencer -- next June. Duke hopes to have it completed by June 2010.

Work on the Dan River site, 12 miles northwest of Reidsville, is slated to start next summer, Lineberger says.

The plants would be among Duke's largest gas-fired generators. The two-unit Lincoln Combustion Turbine Station in Lincoln County has a 1,200-megawatt capacity. The Mill Creek Combustion Turbine Station in Cherokee County, S.C., has a capacity of 640 megawatts.

The new plants also would be Duke's first gas units used for anything other than peak-load power.

Duke's power plants have three types of capacity. Baseload plants, such as the 2,200-megawatt McGuire Nuclear Station of Lake Norman and the 2,090-megawatt Marshall Steam Station in Catawba County, run essentially all of the time. Intermediate-load plants run much of the time in the winter and summer. Peak plants are used only during the highest-use periods.

The proposed gas units would be intermediate plants.

Duke has used gas-fired units only for peak demand because of the volatile cost of natural gas. But the company believes it can make gas an economical part of its intermediate supply.

Before making a final decision on the projects, Duke will see if it would be less expensive to buy the additional intermediate capacity from other sources, Lineberger says.

In May, Duke sent out two requests to energy suppliers for bids to sell power to the utility. One asks for proposals to sell Duke 800 megawatts of intermediate capacity from plants available by 2013. The other seeks 2,000 megawatts of intermediate power available after 2013.

The company is the Carolinas utility of Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK).