Greensville County Power Station, Virginia

Greensville County power station is a 1,588MW combined-cycle natural gas power plant located in Greensville County, Virginia, US.

The plant is owned and operated by Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Energy.

Construction on the $1.3bn project started in December 2016, while commercial operations were started in December 2018.

The power station is expected to generate enough electricity to power approximately  400,000 Virginia households over its estimated operational life of 36 years.

Greensville County power project development history

Dominion Virginia Power submitted a proposal for developing a combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plant in Greensville County in March 2015.

It received construction and environmental approvals from the Virginia state authorities by June 2016.

The power station construction was completed by July 2018.

Greensville County power station make-up

The Greensville County power station is built on a 1,143ha site shared by both the Greensville and Brunswick counties in Virginia.

The natural gas-fired power facility consists of three Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas (MHPSA) M501J advanced gas turbines of 369.8MW capacity each and three Alstom Hheat Rrecovery Ssteam Ggenerators (HRSG) in combined-cycle operation. It is also fitted with an Alstom steam turbine generator of 663.9MW capacity.

The M501J gas turbine, with 15-stage axial flow compressor, can operate at 1,600°C inlet turbine temperature and provide up to 64% net thermal efficiency in combined-cycle operations.

The power plant design includes an 80-cell direct dry air-cooled condenser (ACC) and a thermal energy storage (TES) facility comprising a thermal energy storage tank and a chiller system.

The other components of the power station include an auxiliary boiler of 185MMbtu per hour capacity, a diesel-fired emergency generator, two propane-fired emergency generators, and a diesel-fired water pump.

Natural gas supply for the Greensville County power station

Natural gas for the Greensville County power plant is being supplied from the Marcellus Shale gas reserves in West Virginia/Ohio region, via an extension of the Virginia Southside Expansion pipeline named as Greensville Lateral.

The Virginia Southside Expansion pipeline operated by Williams was extended to four miles in order to deliver the natural gas to Greensville County power station.

The power station is also planned to source fuel gas from the proposed Atlantic Coast pipeline, which is expected to commence service in 2019.

Electricity transmission

The electricity generated by the Greensville County power station is transmitted to the newly-constructed Rogers Road switching station via two 500kV transmission lines.

Contractors involved

Fluor was awarded the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the project to in July 2016.

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas (MHPSA) provided three M501J gas turbines, while Alstom supplied the HRSGs and the steam turbine. The gas turbines were built at MHPSA’s Savannah facility in Georgia, US.

LPR Construction was engaged for building the air-cooled condenser. AMECO, a subsidiary of Fluor, provided construction tools and rentals for the project.

Flour subcontracted Timmons Group to provide the engineering design for three miles of road renovation to support the construction of the Greensville County power station.