Hal B. Wansley Power Plant

Hal B. Wansley Power Plant is a power station at Carrollton, Georgia, USA. Its various units, powered by coal, oil, and natural gas,cite web
title = Plant Wansley brochure
work =
publisher = Georgia Power Company
year = 2003
url = http://www.georgiapower.com/about/pdf/Plant%20Wansley%20brochure.pdf
format = PDF
doi =
accessdate = 2008-08-07] are operated by Southern Company, Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, and Municipal Electric Authority.cite press release
title = Plant Wansley
publisher = Southern Company
date = 2005-07-31
url = http://www.southernco.com/generation/f_wansley.pdf
accessdate = 2007-01-12] It has one of the tallest chimneys in the world (305 meters), built in 1976.

Location

The plant is located at coord|33|24|48|N|85|01|57|W|display=inline,title in the north-east corner of Heard County, Georgia, about convert|20|km|mi south of Carrollton.

Yellow Dirt Church Cemetery

Historic Yellow Dirt Church Cemetery is located on the grounds of the power plant. Visitors have to stop at the plant's gate and have a security guard escort them to the cemetery. [cite web
title = Yellow Dirt Church Cemetery
work =
publisher = RootsWeb
year = 2006
url = http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ala1davis/genealogy/states/georgia/heard/yellowdirt/yellowdirt.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2008-08-07]

Individual units

outhern Company owned

* Two dual-use Units 1 and 2 (also known as SG01 and SG02) [cite court
litigants=Sierra Club, Physicians For Social Responsibility, Georgia Forestwatch, and Eileen Lange v. Georgia Power Company
vol=05-11314
reporter=U.S.
opinion=
pinpoint=
format=PDF
court=Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
date=2006-03-30
url=http://caselaw.findlaw.com/data2/circs/11th/0511314p.pdf ] can be fueled either by bituminous coal or by oil. They are rated at 952 MWe each, and were launched into service in 1976 and 1978.cite web
title = Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2006
work =
publisher = Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy
year = 2006
url = http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/capacity/capacity.html
format = Excel
doi =
accessdate = 2008-07-14]
* Oil-fired Unit 5A is rated 52.8 MWe, it was launched in 1980.

Georgia Power Company owned

* Natural gas-fired combined-cycle steam plant Units ST6 and ST7 are rated at 213.3 MWe each, and were launched in 2002.
* Natural gas-fired combined-cycle steam turbines of Units CT6A, CT6B, CT7A, and CT7B are rated at 203.1 MWe each and were also launched in June, 2002.

Collectively, units ST6, CT6A, and CT6B are referred to as unit 6. Same is true about its twin unit 7.

Oglethorpe Power Corporation owned

Unit 8, also known as Chattahoochee Energy Facility, consists of three combined-cycle gas-powered generators: 1 and 2, rated at 176 MWe each, and 3, rated at 187.7 MWe. All of them were launched into service in 2003.

Municipal Electric Authority owned

Wansley Unit 9 consists of three combined-cycle gas-powered generators: CT1 and CT2, rated at 171 MWe each, and ST1, rated at 226 MWe. All of them were launched into service in 2004.

Coal delivery

Coal is delivered via a railroad by 100-car trains, each carrying 10,000 tons of coal. At the plant, an automated unloading trestle empties the train in about 30 minutes and conveyor belts move the coal to the storage pile or the storage bunkers inside the plant. The bunkers hold a 14-hour reserve; the coal pile target inventory is a 32-day supply.

Coal is coarsely crushed at the mine then crushed again at the plant as it travels to the storage bunkers inside the boiler house. A pulverizer below each bunker grinds the coal to a fine powder that is mixed with air and blown into the boiler through a network of pipes. With both units at full load, Plant Wansley burns about 14,000 tons of coal every 24 hours. Annual consumption averages four to five million tons.

Cooling water

Cooling water is taken up from the "service water pond", created by damming a small creek flowing from the north-west into the Chattahoochie River immediately on the south-eastern side of the plant.

At coal-fired units 1 and 2, water is converted to steam at convert|1000|F|C|sigfig=2 temperature and convert|3600|psi|MPa|lk=on|adj=on|abbr=on pressure. At full 920 MWe load, each turbine processes convert|6200000|lb|metric ton|sigfig=2 of steam per hour. Low pressure steam exits the turbine into a condenser where it is cooled and converted back into water to repeat the cycle. During this cooling process required by the second law of thermodynamics, waste heat from the condensing steam is absorbed by the warm water that circulates through the cooling towers, where it cools by evaporation and forced convection of air.

Environment

Electrostatic precipitators on units 1 and 2 remove more than 99% of the fly ash from the boiler exhaust stream. A digital boiler control system, low NO_x burners and Selective Catalytic Reactors, installed since initial operation, have reduced nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions by almost 90%. The use of cooling towers and the closed-loop steam cycle prevent thermal pollution in the Chattahoochee River.

External links

* [http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b5385 Chimney Diagram]

References