Update on NRG gas turbines

Follow-up to this morning's report in the Hartford Courant.

NRG spokesman Ray Long said that the gas turbines to be installed at the NRG site on River Road are four small, state-of-the-art natural gas burning turbines (LM6000's - GE technology based on jet engines). These turbines can also burn low sulfur fuel oil, if necessary. According to Long, these turbines burn natural gas cleanly and efficiently with "low" CO2 and Nitrous Oxide emissions.

The turbines are water-cooled and will use water drawn from existing wells on the NRG site. The turbines will only run during demand at peak capacity (as determined by the grid-regulating entity known as ISO).

Power generated by these turbines will leave the site on existing 345 kilowatt lines.

NRG would like to break ground next year, but construction is pending state DEP approval. Their goal is to have the plant operating by 2011 to improve electrical grid reliability.

More gas turbines on the river

It looks like the NRG power plant on the Connecticut River, which was listed as one of the "sooty-six" power plants for creating pollution by burning high-sulfur coal and oil, will not be mothballed, as once predicted, when the nearby Kleen Energy gas turbine plant is built.

According to the Hartford Courant, the DPUC has approved four additional gas turbine generators which will be built on the NRG site for production of electricity during peak usage periods.

The construction will be a huge tax benefit for Middletown.

The turbines will be gas-fired, and thereby clean-burning, but no figures are immediately available about how additional gas turbines on the river will affect water usage, or air quality.

Look for updates as more information becomes available.