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Energy Factors Feather River Electric Generating Plant
Sacramento, California
Nielsen-Wurster was engaged by the
Owner / Operator of this biomass plant to
analyze the plant’s performance relative to
both the specifications and industry
standards for this grade of power plant.
This independent power plant provides 15 MW
of firm capacity to the Pacific Gas and
Electric (PG&E) power system. Steam-raising
equipment consists of a circulating
fluidized bed boiler providing 174,000
lbs/hr of steam at 950 degrees F. The boiler
is fired with a mixture of biomass and wastewood products with the ability to run
on natural gas. The Project was supplied on
a turnkey basis and, following initial
synchronization with the PG&E system,
exhibited major deficiencies in components
and systems which significantly impacted
availability of the facility. Serious
deterioration in boiler components was also
observed with a series of significant boiler
failures in the first two years of boiler
life. Nielsen-Wurster performed failure
analyses and damages calculations. Analyses
identified failure modes and grouped them by
category including system inadequacy,
component capacity, equipment/component
specification deficiencies and quality.
Nielsen-Wurster’s analyses led to an
arbitration decision for its client.
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