The Canadian Branch organised a tour of the Whitby, Ontario, facility that is a state of the art, fully automated plant built in 1996. When it was built, it was a joint venture between, Atlantic Packaging and Westcoast Power but, subsequently, Westcoast sold its interest to Calpine.
The tour group, consisting of 25 Canadian Branch members and potential members (the max number that could be accommodated), were welcomed by Mr. Fabio Schular the Plant Manager, who gave a brief presentation on the plant. This was followed by a tour of the plant.
The Plant generates approx. 50 MW using a natural gas fired Rolls-Royce Trent Industrial gas turbine, the first to be installed, worldwide. Steam is produced in a uniquely designed, Once Through Steam Generator (OTSG), manufactured by IST, that is designed to run dry, eliminating the need for a bypass stack, diverter valve system and stack silencer. The OTSG generates steam at 200 psig, at a rate of 180,000 lbs./hr and the steam is used solely for the Atlantic Packaging paper recycling plant that is located adjacent the facility. There are two back-up auxiliary packaged boilers, each cable of producing 100,000 lbs./hour of steam. The electrical power is sold to Ontario Hydro under a PPA that runs until 2008, and is connected to their 240 kV system.
The R-R Trent engine is a three spool, aero derivative unit, operating at a pressure ratio of 35:1 with a special three stage fuel injection system to reduce NOX emissions. The target emissions for NOX is 25 ppm, but this has not yet been met due to combustion chamber problems, but these are well on the way to being resolved and it is anticipated that better than 25 ppm will be achieved eventually. The heat rate for the Trent engine is 8500 Btu's/kWh (40% efficiency) and for the plant, including steam production, approx. 5250 to 6000 Btu's/kWh (65 to 57%).
The generating set was packaged by Westinghouse as their EconoPak and the turbine drives a Brush generator, rated at 66 MVA. The air filtration is single stage Donaldson.
The natural gas is compressed at the plant from 400 to 800 psig., which is required by the engine due to its high pressure ratio. There are dual compressors, each capable of delivering sufficient gas flow for the engine at full load.
Water treatment for the OTSG is provided by a Glegg treatment system that is designed to compensate for the fact that there is no boiler blow down.
The Plant staff totals 11 personnel and is operated 24/7. Most of the maintenance is carried out in house, except for highly specialised work related to the gas turbine, which is done by R-R out of Montreal. Control of the Plant is by a PLC based Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA), with a real time link to R-R in Montreal, with only one Operator per shift at the Plant.
During initial operation, the Plant had reliability problems, mainly associated with the gas turbine's new low NOX combustion technology, and control of the OTSG. These problems now appear to have been resolved to the point where the reliability over the past two years has been 99.6 %. The Plant has been designed with a view to expansion by the addition of a second, identical gas turbine, but this time operating as combined cycle with a steam turbine. These plans are on hold pending resolution of political problems facing cogeneration in the Province of Ontario.
