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Wyoming Distributed Generation Project

Barber Creek combusion turbine generators

Power produced at baseload generating plants is often delivered from the plant to points hundreds of miles away from where it is needed.

Often it’s more practical to build power plants next to areas where the power is needed. This is called distributed generation. Basin Electric’s largest such project is the Wyoming Distributed Generation (WDG) Project in the Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming.

The WDG Project is a response to the coal-bed methane (CBM) development in northeast Wyoming. The project, consisting of nine natural gas fired combustion turbine generators (CTGs), supplies energy and voltage support to Basin Electric’s largest member, Powder River Energy Corporation (PRECorp). The CTGs are remotely operated as needed from the Antelope Valley Station near Beulah, ND.

Though PRECorp’s service territory is largely rural, it is experiencing coal, oil and natural gas development. One of the fastest growing industries there is the CBM development. CBM is a form of natural gas that forms when coal is formed. Absorbed into coal, CBM is released when water is removed from coal seams to lower pressure.

The Wyoming CTGs are the largest distributed generation project in Basin Electric’s history. Situated among three sites - Hartzog, Arvada and Barber Creek -  they each house three 5-megawatt CTGs. The WDG project has a total capacity of 45 megawatts.

• Hartzog first synchonized online June 2002
• Arvada site first synchronized online August 2002
• Barber Creek first synchronized online September 2002
• Each CTG has a capacity of 5 megawatts (MW), for a total project generating capacity of 45 MW.

Because the CBM drilling sites are remotely located, a power source and transmission infrastructure was not immediately available. The deployment of CTGs at three interconnected sites near Gilette, WY, at the end an expanded distribution system will meet the gas developers’ immediate needs.

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• Wyoming Distributed Generation
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No other project like it

“Although gas turbines in themselves are not unique, this project was on the fast-track and unconventional in terms of how we’re applying the turbines to our resource mix. There is no other project like this in the United States.

"These turbines are physically remote and at the end of PRECorp’s distribution system. In fact, PRECorp had to build out to some of the sites.

"Also, they are being controlled from the Antelope Valley Station in Beulah (ND), which is hundreds of miles away and dispatched from Western’s (Western Area Power Administration) Montrose office – also hundreds of miles away.”

~ Mike Paul, Basin Electric vice president of engineering and construction