Renewable Energy
Basin Electric Expands Waste Heat Project
Basin Electric is expanding its waste heat project, as it continues to diversify its generation portfolio. The Bismarck, N.D.- based G&T has added two more sites to the four privately owned waste-heat stations now supplying base load electricity. Two additional sites will be on-line by year’s end.
Basin Electric now buys power produced by six of Ormat Technologies waste heat recovery generation units. The facilities are similar to this 4-megawatt unit near Denver. (Photo By: Ormat Technologies)
Ormat Technologies has built a series of heat generation stations along the Northern Border Pipeline, which moves natural gas from central Canada to the Chicago metropolitan area.
Huge compressors used to push natural gas through the pipeline produce exhaust heat in a range of 800–900 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat exchangers in the exhaust stack are used to vaporize a fluid that is used to generate up to 5.5 megawatts of electricity.
“This technology is new for this part of the Midwest, but it’s another way of producing electricity with virtually no emissions,” said Daryl Hill, Basin Electric’s media relations supervisor. “We also consider this a good addition to our renewable portfolio, because it is base load generation.”
Basin Electric has signed six power purchase agreements with Oreg 2, an Ormat Technologies subsidiary. The two newest stations, located near Manning and Zeeland, N.D., join units near St. Anthony, N.D., and Aberdeen, Clark and Estelline in South Dakota, as part of the G&T’s recovered heat generation program.
While Ormat builds and operates the generation units, Basin Electric has selected locations requiring minimal construction of new transmission lines to add the power to the system. Two additional units near Culbertson, Mont., and Garvin, Minn., should be operational by the end of the year.
Each one will “run almost continuously, as long as the compressor station is running,” said Allen Boushee, a Basin Electric distributed generation engineer. “We’ve found this to be a reliable source of power.”
Tags: Cogeneration, Renewable Energy