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Georgia Power will install cooling towers similar to this new one at Plant

Branch at its McDonough and Yates plants at a combined cost of $175

million. Photo courtesy of Georgia Power.

Click here to enlarge image

Power Engineering

Georgia Power's New Cooling Tower Design Reduces

Environmental Impact

09/01/2001

By Steve Blankinship, Associate Editor

Georgia Power has begun full commercial operation of a $40 million cooling tower at Plant Branch, the company's third

largest coal-fired generation station.

The cooling tower is the culmination of an

agreement between Georgia Power, the state

Environmental Protection Division (EPD), the

U.S. EPA and the Sierra Club to resolve the

issue of hot water discharges from Plant Branch

into the Beaverdam arm of Lake Lanier. The

company signed a memorandum of agreement

with the organizations, clearing the way for

construction of the cooling tower. The

memorandum of agreement represented the

settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club

and allowed the compay to eliminate a bottleneck

in the water discharge permitting process.

"The tower will alleviate fish kills during periods

of very hot summer weather," said Chris Hobson,

Georgia Power's vice president of environmental

affairs. "The helper cooling tower, which differs

from the standard type colling tower in that it

sends the water back into the lake rather than

recirculate water back to the plant, will reduce

temperature of the discharges by about 20

degrees.

Hobson emphasized that the company has been

working for years to address the issue of hot water discharges, even before fish kills were reported in 2000 and 1998.

Construction began in July 2000 and the tower became operational this summer, a full nine months before the company was

required to have it up and running.

The cooling tower is 884 feet long, 96 feet wide and 55 feet high. It features four pumps pumping 100,000 gpm and 32 fans

to cool the plant's discharge water. The tower, provided by GEA, starts and stops when the plant's flow-weighted discharge

temperature exceeds or falls below 94 degrees F, respectively. The tower modulates from zero cooling to cooling about half

of the plant's total discharge based on the heat rejection of the plant. This cooling of the discharge is designed to provide a

"zone of passage" for the fish in the Beaverdam section of the lake. At full tower operation, the cooling tower consumes

about 18 MW.

Georgia Power will perform biological studies during the summers of 2002 and 2003 to demonstrate that the tower will

protect fish next to Plant Branch, even when the plant is operating at full capacity during the hottest summer weather.

Similar cooling towers will be built at Georgia Power's Plant McDonough near Smyrna, Georgia and Plant Yates near

Newnan. The total cost of the cooling towers at plants Branch, McDonough and Yates will be about $175 million. The tower

designs at McDonough and Yates will be very similar to the Branch design.

In addition to the cooling tower, Plant Branch has added $10 million in clean air controls since 1990 and will add at least

another $14 million by May of 2003.

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