- \n
- 28-megawatt (MW)<\/li>\n
- Operational since 1967<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Healy Unit 2<\/h2>\n
- \n
- 60-megawatt<\/li>\n
- Began burning coal in 1998, but was placed in warm-layup status until it was purchased from Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) in December 2013 and came back online in May 2015<\/li>\n
- The plant has been commercially operated since September 2018<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This 60-MW power plant increases our baseload of coal-fired generation.<\/p>\n
Permitting<\/h3>\n
- \n
- In November 2012, the joint Consent Decree between Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA), AIDEA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was approved<\/li>\n
- At issue was the agency\u2019s reissue of the air permit \u2013 the last major hurdle to restarting the Healy Unit 2 Power Plant<\/li>\n
- Golden Valley chose to pursue the Consent Decree option with the EPA, otherwise, there was no defined end to the air permitting process \u2013 The Consent Decree avoids what the co-op believes would have been lengthy and costly litigation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Consent Decree Stipulations<\/h3>\n
- \n
- GVEA agreed to install the most rigorous emission controls available on Healy Unit 2, with an estimated cost of $30 million \u2013 This includes an estimated $5 million for installing additional nitrous oxide controls on Healy Unit 1<\/li>\n
- GVEA agreed to pay $250,000 to help fund the Fairbanks North Star Borough and Denali Borough Woodstove Change-out Program \u2013 This will help alleviate the particulate matter problems in the Interior.<\/li>\n
- GVEA negotiated for a minimal payment of $115,000 to the EPA \u2013 Payments to the EPA are required under the rules of a Consent Decree<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The Consent Decree does not require any mandatory shutdown dates for neither Healy Unit 1 nor Healy Unit 2. GVEA\u2019s board of directors retains full control of decisions regarding shutdown of either plant.<\/p>\n
History of the Plant<\/h3>\n
In 1989, the U.S. DOE\u2019s Clean Coal Technology Program selected Healy as a demonstration plant to use experimental technology to burn waste coal. Healy Unit 2 began burning coal in 1998 and generated power intermittently through 1999 in its testing phase. When the plant failed a 90-day commercial operation test, it was placed in warm lay-up status in early 2000. Talks between AIDEA and GVEA to resolve disputes were unsuccessful. In 2005, AIDEA filed a lawsuit against GVEA. The purchase of the power plant ended the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
1993 Final Environmental Impact Statement:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Healy Environmental Impact Volume 1 (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n
- Healy Environmental Impact Volume 2 (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Construction Funding<\/h3>\n
- \n
- Department Of Energy \u2013 $120 million<\/li>\n
- Alaska Legislature \u2013 $25 million<\/li>\n
- AIDEA \u2013 $150 million<\/li>\n
- GVEA and Usibelli Coal Mine \u2013 $10 million plus in-kind contributions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Timeline<\/h3>\n
1989<\/h4>\n
- \n
- DOE selected Healy Unit 2 (formerly HCCP) as a Clean Coal Technology Program demonstration plant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
1995 to 1997<\/h4>\n
- \n
- Healy Unit 2 constructed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
1997 to 2000<\/h4>\n
- \n
- Healy 2 Demonstration run (failed)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2000<\/h4>\n
- \n
- Plant placed in warm lay-up status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
February 2009<\/h4>\n
- \n
- GVEA and AIDEA reach sale agreement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2009 to 2013<\/h4>\n
- \n
- Negotiations were finalized in December 2013 when the purchase agreement was signed on December 4<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2014 to 2015<\/h4>\n
- \n
- After 18 months of retrofitting and refurbishing Healy Unit 2, which included additional pollution controls, updating systems and replacing obsolete controls, on May 28, 2015, the plant was fired on oil for the first time since 2000 \u2013 On August 4, 2015, Healy Unit 2 was fired on coal<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2016 to 2017<\/h4>\n
- \n
- On March 3, 2016, when the plant was operating in a start-up condition, transferring from oil to coal, Healy Unit 2 experienced a fire\/explosion in the coal feed system<\/li>\n
- On November 2, 2016, Healy Unit 2 suffered damage to the coal feed system due to spontaneous combustion, commonly known in the industry as a \u201cpuff\u201d<\/li>\n
- At GVEA\u2019s August 28, 2017 board meeting, the directors authorized moving forward with proposed modifications to Healy Unit 2\u2019s coal feed and fuel transport system<\/li>\n
- Both Unit 1 and Unit 2 have undergone significant environmental upgrades \u2013 Unit 1 was successfully commissioned six months early \u2013 Unit 2\u2019s environmental controls are installed and will be commissioned once the plant is back online, anticipated in the fall of 2018<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2018<\/h4>\n
- \n
- January to June: Demolition of old fuel transport system and construction\/installation of the redesigned system<\/li>\n
- July 2: First-fire on oil (ignition fuel), followed by system startup and testing<\/li>\n
- July 28: First-fire on coal, followed by tuning and testing<\/li>\n
- August 16: Achieved full-load operation, followed by additional tuning and testing<\/li>\n
- September 14: Successfuly completed 30-day 85%-availability run to achieve commercial operation\/acceptance<\/li>\n
- October 10: Planned outage to install SCR catalyst (the final emission control component)<\/li>\n
- November December: Commercial operation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2019<\/h4>\n
- \n
- January to April: Commercial operation<\/li>\n
- April: Scheduled outage took place, to perform annual maintenance<\/li>\n
- May: Resumed commercial operation<\/li>\n
- June \u2013 August: Plant ran consistently, though often at reduced load, due to issues with the baghouse and the Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) system<\/li>\n
- September: Plant offline for 2 weeks to replace baghouse bags and make repairs to slag drag chain<\/li>\n
- October 9 to 15: Repairs made to slag drag chain and wet ash bucket elevator<\/li>\n
- October 21 to 22: Repairs made to bucket elevator<\/li>\n
- November: Original system design led to lime contamination of boiler water while plant was offline \u2013 Required a week of flushing the boiler before re-firing<\/li>\n
- December: Coal quality issues (wet coal with low BTU) and continued slag drag issues<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2020<\/h4>\n
- \n
- January 25 to February 6: Offline for slag drag repairs<\/li>\n
- February to March: Good run with 52 days online<\/li>\n
- April to May: Operating, but continued to battle issues with the slag drag, bucket elevator and FGD systems<\/li>\n
- June 8 to 17: Dynamic classifier bearing failure; plant at half-load<\/li>\n
- July to August: Planned outage \u2013 Benetech performed major upgrades and\/or repairs to wet ash system, which includes slag drag conveyor, bottom ash conveyor and bucket elevator \u2013 GVEA repaired transfer conveyor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Healy Unit 2 Videos<\/h3>\n
- \n
- Healy 2 Restart 2015<\/a><\/li>\n
- Healy 2 SCR Tour 2016<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Coal Ash Handling Systems<\/h2>\n
Healy Unit 1:<\/strong> The former coal ash handling system, constructed in the 1990s, consisted of a primary settling pond (Ash Pond), a Recirculating Pond, an Emergency Overflow Pond, and an Ash Drying Area (defined as a CCR landfill by the CCR Rule). All three ponds were incised with storage volume less than 20 acre-feet and height less than 20 feet. Coal ash from the Ash Pond was placed in the Ash Drying Area where excess water drained and evaporated prior to transport and disposal at Usibelli Coal Mine (UCM). The ash settling ponds and the Ash Drying Area make up the four CCR units regulated under the CCR Rule. After closure of Unit 1\u2019s coal ash settling ponds in 2021, coal ash generated by Unit 1 is directed to Unit 2\u2019s mechanical drag conveyor systems. Combined coal ash from the 2 units is conveyed to silos for intermediate storage prior to offloading for transport and final disposal at UCM.<\/p>\n
Healy Unit 2:<\/strong> A dry handling process and mechanical drag conveyor system is used to manage the generated coal ash. Unit 2\u2019s coal ash is intermediately stored in silos prior to transport and disposal at the UCM.<\/p>\n
Interties<\/h2>\n
Northern Intertie<\/h3>\n
![\"Northern](\"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/northernintertie-1.jpeg\")
GVEA energized the Northern Intertie in October 2003. This 97-mile, 230-kilovolt line is one of GVEA\u2019s initiatives to improve system reliability. This transmission line stretches between Healy and Fairbanks. Golden Valley is the northern control point for the Alaska Intertie, which serves most Railbelt communities. This transmission line extends between Willow and Healy, along the Parks Highway corridor. Through the Alaska Intertie, GVEA is connected to Chugach Electric Association, Matanuska Electric Association, Homer Electric Association and the City of Seward\u2019s electrical system.<\/p>\nBoth interties allow GVEA to augment our 296 MW generation capacity, with an additional 70 MW from southern utilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Healy Power Plant is composed of 2 generating units: Healy Unit 1 28-megawatt (MW) Operational since 1967 Healy Unit 2 60-megawatt Began burning coal in 1998, but was placed in warm-layup status until it was purchased from Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) in December 2013 and came back online in May 2015 The […]\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"parent":37380,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38305"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40523,"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38305\/revisions\/40523"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/37380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gvea.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Healy 2 SCR Tour 2016<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Healy 2 Restart 2015<\/a><\/li>\n
- After 18 months of retrofitting and refurbishing Healy Unit 2, which included additional pollution controls, updating systems and replacing obsolete controls, on May 28, 2015, the plant was fired on oil for the first time since 2000 \u2013 On August 4, 2015, Healy Unit 2 was fired on coal<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Negotiations were finalized in December 2013 when the purchase agreement was signed on December 4<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- GVEA and AIDEA reach sale agreement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Plant placed in warm lay-up status<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Healy 2 Demonstration run (failed)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Healy Unit 2 constructed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- DOE selected Healy Unit 2 (formerly HCCP) as a Clean Coal Technology Program demonstration plant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Healy Environmental Impact Volume 2 (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Healy Environmental Impact Volume 1 (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n