Brazos Electric Cooperative Jack County Gas-Fueled Power Plant - EPC

Client: Brazos Electric Cooperative

Location: Jacksboro, TX, U.S.

Industry: Power

Map showing the location of Brazos Electric Cooperative Jack County Gas-Fueled Power Plant - EPC

Executive Summary

Fluor provided engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) and commissioning to Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, Inc. for the 620 MW Jack County Generation Plant Unit 1 near Jacksboro, Texas.

Awarded to Fluor in 2003 on a lump sum turnkey basis, the project was completed in 2005, three months ahead of schedule.

Client's Challenge

Brazos Electric is the largest generation and transmission cooperative in Texas and is responsible for generating and transporting wholesale electricity to its 16 member-owner distribution cooperatives and two municipal systems. After many years of purchasing a major portion of their electric needs directly from independent power producers and experiencing significant growth in electric demand, Brazos Electric decided to begin a major capital generation expansion program.

Their first power plant under this program would be the first unit Brazos Electric had built in the past 11 years. Brazos Electric's main concerns were with capital cost, schedule, plant reliability and job site safety during construction. Based upon our proposal to successfully address the key issues, Brazos Electric contracted with Fluor to design, build and commission this 620-megawatt, natural gas-fired, combined cycle power plant.

Fluor's Solution

We began detailed engineering for the 620 MW power generation facility in our Houston office in 2003. Full site mobilization began in 2004 with construction activity peaking with a workforce of 400.

We completed the project three months ahead of schedule. The project achieved more than 900,000 hours with no lost-time accidents or restricted workdays. Because of the use of our reference plant design, the project was completed with change orders of less than ½ of 1%.

The facility design was a two-on-one configuration (two combustion turbines and one steam turbine), single-fuel (natural gas) and duct-fired power plant with inlet evaporative cooling. The steam turbine exhaust was condensed in a water-cooled steam surface condenser. A cooling tower was used to cool the hot circulating water.

Conclusion

Brazos Electric began providing reliable electricity from the Jack County Unit 1 to cooperative members in 2005. It is Brazos Electric's most reliable power plant in their fleet.

We had an exemplary safety record, with more than 900,000 hours worked without a lost-time accident, OSHA recordable incident or restricted workday case, while delivering the project three months ahead of the guaranteed commercial operation date.

As a result of our outstanding performance on Unit 1, Brazos Electric awarded Fluor the Jack Unit 2 expansion project in 2008.