POWER August 2010 - 27

2010 PLANT OF THE YEAR
(Hg) emissions from the new plants by making
reductions at its existing plants when the air
permits for Oak Grove were applied for in July
2005. By the end of this year, EFH will have
spent $1 billion to make that promise a reality.
In fact, the entire coal fleet's emissions were
reduced by 20% below 2005 levels.
Long Gestation
The two 800-MW Oak Grove units (Figure 1),
located in Robertson County about 130 miles
north of Houston near Franklin, will have
reached commercial service by the time you
read this article. However, this project inherited
most of its personality from two separate projects
that began life more than 35 years ago.
In the mid-1970s, TXU had approved construction
of two lignite-fired power plants,
called Forest Grove and Twin Oaks, in different
parts of Texas (Table 1). TXU obtained all
the necessary permits to construct both plants
(each unit nominally rated at 800 MW net,
870 MW gross) and ordered much of the engineered
equipment. A sudden drop in electricity
demand reduced the immediate need for new
generation, and the projects were deferred. The
projects were started and delayed several times
over the years until the air permits were withdrawn
for both projects in December 1994.
Some of the expensive, long-lead equipment
had already been delivered to the job sites in the
late 1970s. At Twin Oaks, where the boiler island
was supplied by Combustion Engineering
(now Alstom Power), some of the plant's concrete
infrastructure had been installed and the
boiler structural steel had been started for Unit
1 before the project was officially suspended.
When the project was suspended, all of the delivered
equipment for two units at Twin Oaks
was carefully preserved, laid out in neat rows on
the site, and began three decades of long-term
storage. At one point, Twin Oak's Unit 2 equipment
was relocated at another TXU facility.
Forest Grove, a single-unit lignite-fired plant,
suffered the same fate, although Babcock and
Wilcox (B&W) supplied its boiler island.
By the mid-2000s, increasing electricity demand
gave Luminant the opportunity to resurrect
the two mothballed supercritical plants.
Luminant wisely selected the Twin Oaks site to
leverage the already-completed site work and
renamed it Oak Grove (presumably because the
twin oak trees had grown into a grove over the
intervening 30 years). The equipment stored on
site retained its Unit 1 designation. Equipment
in long-term storage at Forest Grove was relocated
to the Oak Grove site and redesignated as
Unit 2 (Figure 2 and Table 2).
New air emission permits were applied for
in July 2005 and approved in June 2007. Plant
Director Clifford Watson, PE, emphasized that
permitting and timely constuction of the plant
was possible in large measure due to the strong
August 2010 | POWER
1. Something old, something new. Luminant's 1,600-MW Oak Grove Plant is located
about a two-hour drive north of Houston near the city of Franklin on a 4,230-acre site. The two
steam generators were originally purchased in the late 1970s for two different projects but were
later stored when slower-than-expected load growth made constructing new capacity unnecessary.
Courtesy: Luminant
Table 1. Key milestones for the Oak Grove Power Plant. The Oak Grove plant
was originally named the Twin Oak project and was authorized in January 1973. The planned
commercial operating date was 1978 (Unit 1) and 1979 (Unit 2). Source: Luminant/Fluor
Date
May 1973
Nov. 1976
Sept. 1977
Feb. 1978
Feb. 1979
Oct. 1984
Sept. 1987
Sept. 1989
Nov. 1992
Dec. 1994
July 2005
July 2005
Apr. 2006
June 2007
June 2007
June 2007
Aug. 2009
Sept. 2009
Dec. 2009
Jan. 2010
Feb. 2010
Apr. 2010
June 2010
Project milestone
Joint memorandum of agreement with Alcoa to jointly construct, own, and operate the plant
Project delayed for two years (first of several delays)
EPA issued air permit
Engineering re-started
Plant construction began
TXU purchased Alcoa's lignite properties and interest in the plant
Construction and engineering halted due to multi-year project delay (engineering 90% complete,
Unit 1 construction 20% complete
Engineering restarted
Construction and engineering halted; project delayed indefinitely
Air permit withdrawn
Project reinitiated under the new name Oak Grove using the Twin Oak Unit 1 equipment and
the former Forest Grove Unit 1 equipment
TXU applied to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)
EPC contract signed with Fluor
Air permit approved by TCEQ
EPC agreement signed with Fluor
Groundbreaking for Oak Grove Plant
Unit 1 achieves first synchronization with the grid
Unit 1 achieves first fire on lignite
Unit 1 and common equipment achieve substantial completion
Unit 2 achieves first synchronization with the grid
Unit 2 achieves first fire on lignite
Unit 1 begins commercial operation and under ERCOT direction
Unit 2 achieves substantial completion
August 2010 (est.) Unit 2 begins commercial operation
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POWER August 2010

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