In 1999, Tampa Electric reached a landmark agreement with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and, in 2000, with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to reduce overall emissions from its generation facilities. In completing the first part of the agreement, Tampa Electric shut down it’s nearly 50 year-old Gannon Power Station and constructed the $700 million, natural gas-powered H.L. Culbreath Bayside Power Station.
The next part of the agreement required the company to evaluate options for emissions reductions at Big Bend. Options included repowering to natural gas or staying with coal and adding the best available control technology (BACT) for emissions reduction.
Repowering Big Bend to natural gas would allow the company to meet ever-strengthening emissions standards, but would make the company too dependent on natural gas as a single fuel source. The company would be at the mercy of the market in terms of price and availability of natural gas. Prices could increase unexpectedly and dramatically increasing fuel costs to ratepayers. Or, as we learned during the 2004 hurricane season, availability of natural gas can be compromised or constricted during an emergency, possibly impacting reliability.
As a power company, it is not advisable to be too dependent on one fuel source to generate power should that fuel be in short supply or become too expensive. Fortunately, coal is an abundant, domestic, affordable fuel used to power about 50 percent of Tampa Electric’s – and the nations – generation capacity.
Big Bend generates almost 1,800 megawatts of much-needed electricity from coal. Increasing customer growth in this market requires a reliable supply of electricity. Using coal to power the plant helps diversify the fuel sources used by Tampa Electric to make electricity helping to ensure reliability.
SCR technology is the best available control technology in the industry.
