Hastings turns on all five power stations for first time ever
by Tony Herrman, City of Hastings
HASTINGS, Neb. - To help meet demand as well as bolster electric production reliability on a nationwide basis, all five Hastings power generation sites were called online at the same time for what is believed to be the first time ever, on Monday afternoon, July 31.
The Southwest Power Pool – a nonprofit corporation that exists to provide reliable power and competitive electricity prices – called North Denver Station No. 4 and No. 5 electrical generation units into operation at 1 p.m., Sunday and 1 p.m., Monday, respectively. Don Henry Power Center was called into operation 3 p.m., Monday. Those power generation sites join Whelan Energy Center No. 1 and No. 2, which were already in operation.
Don Henry operates primarily on natural gas but can also be operated on fuel oil. It can be brought on-line in a moment’s notice. NDS 4 and 5 are natural gas-fired generators.
NDS 4 and 5 typically operate once a year to prove their capacity and provide a financial benefit to Hastings Utilities rate payers through reliability and additional capacity, but those units have run more often than usual this summer.
To bring all the plants online took all 74 electric production employees, with support from Energy Supply and Engineering. Preparation to bring the lesser-used generation sites online including gassing NDS 4 and 5, filling boilers up with water and balancing boiler chemistry and filling the NDS cooling tower with water.
The coal-fire WEC 1 and 2 were running at full capacity at 77 and 220 megawatts per hour. NDS 4 was running at 6 MWH, NDS 5 ran at 10 MWH. Don Henry ran between 5 and 18 MWH. WEC 1 and 2 will remain online, NDS 4 will come offline 1 p.m. on Tuesday, and NDS 5 will come offline 1 p.m. on Wednesday and Don Henry came offline at 6:15 p.m. Monday.
NDS 4 and NDS 5 operated continuously from their completion in the 1950s until WEC 1 was operational in 1981. The NDS units have been in intermittent and reserve status since then.
WEC 2 was operational in 2011. Don Henry was operational in 1972.
