Latest coal-burning generator in Alberta reduces emissions

The most advanced coal-fired power plant in Canada began commercial operation at the beginning of March.
Located 50 kilometres southwest of Edmonton, the 450 MW Genesee 3 plant is a joint venture between EPCOR and TransAlta. It is equipped with $90 million in clean air technologies to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to those of a natural gas combined cycle plant — 18% lower than the average Alberta coal plant.
It will have half the nitrogen oxide emissions of existing coal-fired generators and will prevent 99.8 per cent of fine particulates from reaching the atmosphere, said TransAlta.
To achieve the relatively clean burning generation, the facility is the first to use a supercritical pressure boiler. The technology uses higher temperatures and steam pressures together with a high efficiency steam turbine to create a more efficient process for converting thermal energy into electricity.
Once on line, Genesee 3 will send 176 MW of power to the grid.
The construction was one of the largest projects in Alberta, employing 2,100 people at the peak. It took 36 months to build and was completed on time and on budget.
Colt Engineering of Calgary were consultants for the plant engineering and were the construction manager. Jacobs were the consulting engineers for Hitachi who did the power islanding component of the project.