Lights On for Zachry

Texas-based Firm Continues to Add to its Florida Portfolio

By Debra Wood

Zachry of San Antonio, Texas, topped Southeast Construction’s design-build contractor list with $378 million in project revenue in 2008, and since then the company has added to its portfolio.

advertisement

Zachry, in a joint venture with Black and Veatch of Kansas City, Mo., began working on units one and two at the $2.1-billion West County Energy Center for Florida Power & Light of Juno in April 2007, and later it picked up the contract for Unit 3 at the combined-cycle plant. Also in 2007, Zachry began work on an air-quality-control project at Progress Energy’s Crystal River plant in partnership with Burns & McDonnell of Kansas City, Mo. The project is part of a more than $1.3-billion effort by Progress Energy to meet federal environmental rules.

More recently, the company broke ground in March on a $479-million, natural gas-fueled power generator at the Cane Island Power Park in Osceola County for the Florida Municipal Power Agency in Orlando.

And Zachry expects to start construction early next year on JEA’s new Greenland Energy Center in Jacksonville. The approximately $200-million project calls for construction of two 175MW, dual-fuel (natural gas and distillate) turbines.

“The current state of the markets in the world, financially, worked well for us,” says Don Cheatham, JEA project manager for the Greenland facility. “There was a lot of competition among qualified firms. Pricing came in less than first anticipated.”

A Successful Method Zachry has more than 50 years experience in the power industry and has constructed 110 major generating facilities.

“We understand the market,” says Buddy Myers, the firm’s vice president and operations manager. “Over a series of projects, you refine processes and learn who brings what strength to the table.”

Zachry often partners with engineering firms on engineering, procurement and construction projects to bring in additional experience and skills to a project, and sometimes it partners because of a job’s complexity. Zachry Engineering Corp. provides engineering for Zachry Industrial on some EPC jobs.

“Design-build provides efficiencies of scale in terms of pricing,” Myers says. “There’s a lot more continuity in terms of being able to manage the project.”

JEA has used an EPC approach on recent projects because “it works well with our project management and engineering capabilities.” Cheatham says. “Dealing with one large entity is helpful.”

A recent aerial view of FPL’s $2.1-billion West County Energy Center project, currently under construction in Palm Beach County. (Photo courtesy FPL.)

FPL spokesperson Mayco Villafana says in an e-mail that EPC provides a process where the contractor can deliver a power plant in a cost-effective manner and meet the company’s performance and operational requirements.

“We select contractors based on their competitiveness, experience, strength in assembling the appropriate personnel and financial strength and resources,” Villafana says.

FMPA considered other delivery methods before selecting Zachry to design and build its new facility, but ultimately the governing board decided on an EPC contract, says Mark McCain, assistant general manager for public relations and human resources at FMPA.

“They did that for a couple of reasons,” he adds. “One is to minimize our risk. The EPC approach has that advantage.”

West County Zachry teamed up with Black & Veatch, forming the joint venture West County Power Partners, to build the West County facility on a Palm Beach County greenfield site for FPL. Each block is considered a three-on-one configuration, consisting of three Mitsubishi G-series combustion turbine generators exhausting into three triple-wide Nooter/Eriksen heat recovery steam generators.

“This is the first greenfield power plant project for FPL in more than 30 years and the first use of the G combustion turbine technology,” Villafana says.

FPL is purchasing the combustion and steam turbines, the heat-recovery steam generators and the main stepup transformer, Myers says. Zachry is providing the balance of the plant, the cooling towers, tanks, water feed pumps and motors.

Each Mitsubishi’s G technology combustion turbine is rated at 1,250MW. Altogether, the plant will be able to generate approximately 3,500MW.

Blocks 1 and 2 are in the commissioning and startup phase. The team has a finish date of late summer on Block 1 and February on Block 2, although Villafana expects both will be operational by yearend. Phase three began construction in March and has a June 2011 completion date.

Crystal River In a job for Progress Energy, Environmental Partners Crystal River, a partnership between Zachry and Burns & McDonnell, is completing an emission-control project on the company’s Crystal River Units 4 and 5.

In a job for Progress Energy, Zachry is in partnership with Burns & McDonnell of Kansas City, Mo., for an emission-control project on the company’s Crystal River Units 4 and 5. (Photo courtesy Zachry.)

“It’s back-end environmental cleanup,” Myers says. “It’s about carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide emission reductions.”

The project features installing selective catalytic reduction systems and wet lime flue-gas desulferization for two 1980s-era, 750-megawatt pulverized coal units.

Zachry began the work in February 2007 and has a completion date of next May.

“These are complex, lengthy outages, requiring round-the-clock work,” Myers says.

Cane Island The FMPA, a wholesale power agency owned by municipal electric utilities, is adding a high-efficiency, natural gas-fired generating unit that will produce 300MW, enough to serve approximately 60,000 homes. In addition to adding capacity, the new unit will modernize the agency’s equipment and increase efficiency.

“This will be one of the cleanest plants and one of the highest-efficiency plants in Florida,” McCain says. The facility will use treated waste water for cooling purposes, which will conserve ground water resources.

The EPC agreement with Zachry includes provisions for constructability improvements. Both parties can share in savings to the cost of construction. It is structured so the entity that comes up with an idea, which will reduce cost by at least $10,000, receives 60% of the savings and the other party will receive 40%. By early July, ideas brought forward have shaved $300,000 off the cost of the project.

Construction began in March and is expected to finish in 2011.

Greenland JEA needed additional generation capacity to meet increased demand, and it strategically selected a parcel east of the St. Johns River, closer to its fastest load growth. The bulk of the permitting has been secured.

The power company expects to begin sitework in September on the greenfield parcel. JEA created four packages so local contractors could participate in the project, Cheatham says.

The Greenland facility is scheduled for commercial operation in June 2011.

Useful sources:

• West County Energy Center
http://www.fpl.com/environment/plant/west_county.shtml

• Greenland Energy Center
http://www.jea.com/about/pub/downloads/GEC-Factsheet.pdf

• Cane Island Power Park Expansion
http://www.fmpa.com/html/power_supply/cane_island_unit_4.html