Reid Gardner Units 1, 2 & 3 Prepare For Demolition

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

After decades of reliable energy production, the three oldest coal-burning units at Reid Gardner Generating Station in Moapa were decommissioned at the end of last year. Units 1, 2 and 3 at the plant, generated their last electric power on December 17 and were then quietly shut down and disconnected from the grid with very little hype or fanfare.

The full decommissioning of Reid Gardner Station is part of a comprehensive plan proposed by plant owner and regional utility NV Energy. The plan was approved late last year by the State Public Utilities Commission.

The proposal was a response to instruction given in Senate Bill 123 which was approved by the 2013 State Legislature. The bill’s goal was to move the large utility away from coal-fired power and to replace those old resources with renewable energy facilities and cleaner-burning natural gas.

The plan had anticipated the decommissioning of Reid Gardner Units 1, 2 and 3 by the end of 2014. So the December shutdown and decommissioning was right on schedule. Unit 4 would continue it’s operation until it’s eventual decommissioning at the end of 2017, according to the plan.

In a meeting last week with the Progress, the Reid Gardner management team explained the process that plant staff had followed to take the three old units out of service.
First the units had to be prepped by burning the coal remaining at the unit site. Each unit has a silo to store the coal and to feed it directly into the boiler. The silos at the three units were still storing coal in mid-December.

“We had to burn out that remaining coal first,” said Maintenance Manager Jason Hammons. “We didn’t want to isolate the units until those silos were completely empty. That’s really just a safety concern. We didn’t want to have coal sitting in those silos for months on end afterward.”

By December 17, the units had burned all of their coal and were shut down. Then the crew could begin the process of disconnecting the units from the power grid.This was a complex process. But the official decommissioning required two basic elements, according to Plant Director Don Hopper.

First, a series of links which actually tied the units to the electrical power grid had to be physically removed.
“In order to officially decommission the units, we couldn’t just flip the switch and turn it off,” Hopper said. “It actually required a physical separation of the units from the grid. So we removed those links; we physically took them out so that the units are isolated.”

The second required step was to separate the units from the natural gas lines which fuel the igniters when the crews start up the boilers, Hopper said.
“Feasibly if we don’t separate the natural gas from the unit, it would still be possible for someone to open the valves, start the burners and start up the unit without actually running the turbine,” Hopper explained. “So we have to do both: separate the turbine from the grid and separate the boiler from the natural gas; and then you can’t start anything.”

Hammons explained that plant crews had removed a valve from the main gas line and put in a flange that would isolate the units from the gas system permanently.

With those requirements met, the three units were officially decommissioned. But the work is still far from over. Since that time, plant crews have been working through the huge task of isolating hundreds of systems, draining tanks and doing all the prep work to get the units ready for demolition.

Hopper explained that the job is further complicated by the fact that the four units at Reid Gardner have shared many of the same systems over the years. The challenge is to bring down all of the systems for Units 1, 2 and 3 while allowing Unit 4 to continue operating as needed.

“For example, the natural gas line that feeds Unit 4 runs right through the middle of Units 1, 2 and 3,” Hopper said. “We have to relocate that line so we can continue using Unit 4 during the demolition of the others.”

Other shared units include water supply, electricity feeds to operate settling ponds and other equipment. All of these things have been interconnected.
“There is just a bunch of things, over the years as the units were built individually, that have been commingled,” Hopper said. “All of those things have been identified and a plan is in place to either relocate them or physically separate them.”

That meticulous process will continue throughout the coming year, Hopper said. And all of this work has to be done in such a way as to allow Unit 4 to continue to operate on demand.
“That is the real key,” Hammons said. “It is to safely and reliably run Unit 4 when we are called upon to run it through this coming year, despite all of this make-ready work going on to prepare for demolition.”

That work, along with the continued job of operating Unit 4, is expected to keep the plant’s remaining 68 crew members busy for quite some time, Hopper said.
“There is plenty of work to keep our people busy out here,” Hopper said. “We’ve asked our employees to volunteer what their preference is; whether it is working on the continued operation of Unit 4, or serving on the decommissioning crew. So we have the positions and people identified to work in each area.”

Hopper explained that no layoffs are expected.
“We have known for some time that Units 1, 2 and 3 would be retired,” Hopper said. “So we have been attritioning downward here at the plant for the past several years. I think we are in a good position to keep everyone working.”

Hopper said that the utility had made a commitment to its employees that the workers would not have to worry about losing their jobs; even after the demolition.
“The company has committed to finding each employee spots in the rest of the fleet after this is all done,” Hopper said. “And that doesn’t mean they have to accept demotion-type positions, but it means equivalent positions elsewhere. And they have been promised jobs here in the south. So while there may be some commuting for some people, they won’t be faced with the necessity to move out of their communities; unless they want to.”

Manager of Operations Mark Borino said that the workforce at the plant has shown remarkable resilience to change over the past few years.
“Our crews have seen some significant changes where we have operated the plant not in a typical manner that a coal-fired plant is usually run,” Borino said.

He explained that a coal plant is customarily not meant to start and stop on a daily basis. But in recent years, the industry has changed to the point where Reid Gardner has had to respond to market demands and cycle its units off and on regularly.

“They weren’t actually built to do that,” Borino said. “So it took a whole new mindset; and significant expertise; on how to maintain it, how to operate it and how to function that way. Our employees have responded well. We have counted on their knowledge and ability to do it right and safely and in the most efficient manner possible and they have come through.”

Hopper emphasized that the workers had been able to weather all of this change and still keep a stellar safety record. He pointed out that the plant has gone two-and-a-half years without a lost time accident and just over 2 years without a recordable safety incident. Recordable incidents would include events as slight as a cut on a finger requiring a prescription anti-biotic cream, he explained.
“That is a phenomenal record for a coal facility to reach that kind of safety milestone,” Hopper said. “And it is the best record we’ve had at the plant since those kinds of records have been kept.”

While the three decommissioned units will continue to be a hub of activity, preparing for demolition, a casual passerby will probably not notice anything different about them throughout the coming year, Hopper said.

The company is expecting to award a contract for demolition by June or early July. But, even after that, it will take several months of prep work before the contractor will start the work of actual demolition.

It will probably be late this year or early in 2016 before actual demolition efforts will be noticeable, Hopper said.
“But once they get started, it should go pretty quickly from there,” he said.