Power-plant developers have proposed building three big gas-fired generating plants in Eastern Washington that could produce a total of 3,350 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power the city of Seattle three times.


The projects include a 1,200-megawatt plant in Columbia County, a 1,300-megawatt plant in Walla Walla County, and an 850-megawatt plant in Benton County, says Irina Makarow, an energy facility site specialist with the Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. The council oversees permitting of thermal energy plants with at least 250 megawatts of generating capacity.


The council has ordered required preliminary studies on the three proposed projects at the request of the developers, and all three of the developers are expected to apply this summer for regulatory approval to build and operate the plants, Makarow says.


The three projects would add needed generating capacity in a market where demand for electricity is outpacing supply. Stories of tight energy supplies, rolling blackouts in California, and soaring power prices have peppered front pages for months, and the energy crunch is likely to continue, says the Northwest Power Planning Council. The council, which is based in Portland and has two members each from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, oversees power-system planning and fish and wildlife recovery in the Columbia River Basin.


Meanwhile, in other power-plant development news, developers have asked the state of Washington to amend permits that it already had issued for two new power plants on the west side of the state. Both permit holders want design changes that would boost the generating capacity of their plants.


One of the proposed amendments would boost the capacity of the planned 530-megawatt natural gas-fired Satsop Combustion Turbine Project, at the Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, near Elma, Wash., to 650 megawatts. Elma is about 30 miles west of Olympia.


The other proposed amendment would increase the capacity of the proposed 460-megawatt natural gas-fired plant in the Chehalis Industrial Park, in Chehalis, Wash., to 520 megawatts.


Neither project has gotten under way yet, and work also has yet to start on a proposed 400-megawatt natural gas-fired plant at the Weyerhaeuser mill complex in Longview, Wash., for which the state also already has issued a permit.


Despite the current electricity-supply crunch, a fourth license that the state already had issued for a plant, this one near Creston, Wash., about 60 miles west of Spokane, apparently is going to be terminated at the request of the holder. (See story, page B15.)


In yet another proposed project, BP Cherry Point Refinery, of Blaine, Wash., asked the state last week to call for bids on a preliminary study of a 750-megawatt natural gas-fired plant next to its petroleum refinery near Blaine.


Also, Sumas Energy 2 Inc., of Sumas, Wash., has called for the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council to reconsider its February recommendation that Gov. Gary Locke deny the companys application for a permit to build a 660-megawatt natural gas-fired plant in Sumas, Wash. Sumas is in Whatcom County about 20 miles northeast of Bellingham, Wash., near the U.S.-Canadian border.


The flurry of plant-development activity comes on the heels of a power-supply crunch that has buffeted the West and could get worse because theres been so little snow this winter.


Dry weather this winter has left reservoir levels so low that turbines at Northwest dams will churn out far fewer kilowatts this summer than usual, a recent Northwest Power Planning Council analysis says. Low water levels will challenge officials to strike a balance between power generation, electricity prices, and water needed for endangered fish, the council says.


A total of 800 new megawatts of thermal generation, mostly natural gas-fired, will come online by this summer in the Northwest; 700 more are expected by next winter, and there are plans for 2,500 more by 2003, the Northwest Power Planning Council analysis says.


Makarow, of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, says the developers of the proposed Eastern Washington power plants had weighed those projects for years before moving ahead last year as the wholesale power market edged toward the supply crunch, sending wholesale electricity prices soaring.


The market got a lot more interesting to them, Makarow says.


Starbuck Power


Of the three Eastern Washington projects, the one thats farthest along in the evaluation process is the 1,200-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant proposed near Starbuck, Wash., which is roughly 115 miles southwest of Spokane and 45 miles north of Walla Walla, Makarow says. This month, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council received from Jones & Stokes, a Sacramento, Calif.-based consultant, a completed preliminary study, called a potential-site study, which the state requires before a developer can file an application for a permit to build a power plant. A potential-site study identifies environmental, health and safety, social, and regulatory issues that must be addressed in an application to build and operate a power plant. The state contracts with a consultant to do the study, but the developer that wants to build the project pays for the study.


The developer of the proposed Starbuck plant, Starbuck Power LLC, a Bellevue-based subsidiary of PPL Global, of Fairfax, Va., expects to submit by July an application for a permit to build its proposed plant, says Don Fields, PPL Globals general manager of business development. PPL Global, which builds and buys generating plants, is an arm of PPL Corp., an Allentown, Pa.-based energy company. It usually takes the state 12 to 18 months to evaluate such an application and rule on it, Makarow says. That evaluation includes preparation of an environmental impact statement, public hearings, and seeking air and water discharge permits, she says.


Fields says that the Starbuck plant would take about two years to build and would cost between $600 million and $650 million. PPL Global bought development rights to the project in November from Northwest Power Enterprises Inc., a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that does pre-development work for such plants, Field says. We were interested in the Northwest market and had been looking for projects in the area, he says.


Newport Northwest


Meanwhile, Makarow expects that the site evaluation council will receive a potential-site study on another of the three Eastern Washington projects by the end of the month. In that project, Newport Northwest LLC, of Mercer Island, Wash., is proposing to build a 1,300-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant near Wallula, which is about 15 miles southwest of the Tri-Cities. Jones & Stokes, the Sacramento consulting firm, also is doing the state-commissioned study on that proposal.


Newport Northwest, an affiliate of Irvine, Calif.-based Newport Generation Inc., announced plans last summer to develop the plant, which it had been considering for several years. The developer has an option to buy an industrial site for the plant near an interstate natural-gas pipeline and electricity transmission lines, and thus far has received $150 million from a New York-based investment bank to fund the project, says Robert Kahn, Newport Northwests Mercer Island-based public affairs director. The plant is expected to cost about $550 million.


We think this is the right project, in the right place, at the right time, Kahn says. Those of us in the independent energy industry have seen this (energy shortage) coming for a while.


Newport Northwest likely will submit its application this summer to build its proposed plant, he says.


Cogentrix Energy


A third potential-site study, by Bothell, Wash.-based Science Applications International Corp., also is under way on a proposal for an 850-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant in Benton County, about 11 miles west of Paterson, Wash. That project, proposed by Cogentrix Energy Inc., of Charlotte N.C., would be located on land Cogentrix has agreed to buy from Mercer Ranches Inc., in that southeast Washington county. Cogentrix also is a partner with Avista Power Inc., a unit of Spokane-based Avista Corp., in a $100 million, 270-megawatt gas-fired plant thats under construction now in Rathdrum, Idaho.


Kurt Humphrey, Cogentrixs Portland-based vice president, says the company expects to apply this summer for approval to build and operate the Benton County plant. Cogentrix would like to start construction in 2002 and have the plant in operation by October 2004, he says. The plant would cost an estimated $425 million.


Cogentrix plans to sell the power from the plant under long-term contracts, so high prices in the spot market, where wholesale power for immediate delivery is traded, had little effect on the decision to pursue the project, Humphrey says.