What is your role at City Utilities? I have responsibility for all the generating stations, making sure that those are maintained and operated reliably. We have fuels for those stations, and we also are involved with items in the market – how we deliver those to our customers, and if we have any excess capacity, we try to move (it) in such a way that it benefits our customers. Also, transmission (and) generation planning.
What’s your involvement with construction of the Southwest II Power Plant? I have overall responsibility for completion of that project. The Southwest I generating unit went online in 1976, and the original site was developed to put in three units there if we ever wanted to from a planning standpoint. Southwest II is directly adjacent to Southwest I, and it becomes a single generating station. It will be completed at the end of this year. It will be the largest unit that we have in our system and the most efficient unit we have in our system, and environmentally, it will be the cleanest unit. … I look at my job as (clearing) the hurdles for the team that’s on the field.
What is the economic impact of the Southwest II project? Our construction and design cost for this station is going to be $550 million. That’s huge. Back in 2002, we started the design, went through our best options and started the permitting process, which took more than three years. … I think our peak construction employee number has been more than 620 people, and I think we’re at around 610 right now. … Our estimates are that about 90 percent of the people who have come to work on that site live within a 100-mile radius of Springfield. Our labor bill for this job is going to be about $160 million. Typically, the rule of thumb is you get a multiplier effect of five to seven times turnover. Just the labor alone is going to have a regional effect of close to $1 billion. … We’ve had five major construction contracts and 20 equipment contracts. … Our plans right now are showing that our next generation need might be in the 2018 to 2020 timeframe.
How does City Utilities lessen its environmental impact, and why? We utilize natural resources in order to provide the product that our customers want. Our generating emissions are 80 percent lower than what they were in 1990, and yet, we’re putting out about 40 percent more energy. With Southwest II, we’ll be down 90 percent from 1990 (emission levels). … Our James River station is our oldest station … but if you look at that station, it has the same environmental impact as our Southwest I unit. We’ve been able to incrementally put in environmental equipment that lowers our emissions, and we try to do ... to keep costs down.
Where does conservation fit in the picture? That’s a tricky question, because we have an obligation to provide to our customers what they’re asking for – electric, water and natural gas. … We believe that all of our customers should look at their gas, water and electric services as a limited commodity, and they ought to be ... using that product as efficiently as possible. … But we also have that obligation to serve them. I don’t know exactly who’s going to be using energy on July 14 at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, but I can kind of guess. And if I don’t have enough, then we’re going to have a problem – brownouts and blackouts. (Our) energy management and conservation program is designed to incent people to look at putting in (efficient fixtures and appliances) and help people think about conservation without us telling them, “You have to do that.”$550M Construction and design costs for the Southwest II Power Plant
620 Peak number of people employed by the Southwest II project; that number is now about 610
90% Portion of on-site workers who live in a 100-mile radius of Springfield
$160M Portion of the total project cost expected to pay for labor
Nearly $1B Anticipated regional effect of labor costs
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
