Santee Cooper approves plant expansion in South Carolina
Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s largest utility, said December 20 that its board approved the planned expansion of the utility’s Rainey Generating Station in Iva, S.C., as a shared resource with Central Electric Power Cooperative.
The additional 180 MW of generation capacity will come from a combined cycle conversion project, which officials said will include two heat recovery steam generators, a steam turbine generator, and other components to capture the waste heat from two existing simple-cycle units at the site. The heat will be used to generate additional electricity.
The project requires approval from the South Carolina Public Service Commission. Construction is expected to take about three years. The Rainey facility is a 1,000-MW natural gas-fired power plant. Officials said the expansion by utilizing waste heat will not require additional natural gas resources and will not increase the plant’s emissions rate.
I am skeptical that they can recover 18% of waste energy from a utility grade power plant.