Danvers, Massachusetts – Riley Power, Inc. (RPI), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, a subsidiary of Babcock Power, Inc. (BPI), based in Danvers, Massachusetts, has announced that its Lee County Waste-To-Energy Expansion Project was recently awarded the 2008 Renewable Energy ‘Project of the Year’ by Power Engineering Magazine. RPI provided a new municipal solid waste (MSW)-fired steam generator for Lee County’s award winning Energy-from-Waste (also known as Waste-to-Energy) facility located near Fort Myers, Florida.
This project is the first new municipal waste combustion facility built in the United States in more than 10 years. It is also the first project completed under the US Environmental Protection Agency’s new source performance standards for municipal waste combustion facilities.
RPI’s contract included the design, fabrication, delivery and field construction of one (1) 636t/day MSW-fired steam generator. RPI’s scope included all pressure parts and main auxiliaries, such as fans and drives, ducting and insulation, trim valves and piping. Engineering and project management were performed out of RPI’s Worcester, Massachusetts, office, with fabrication of pressure parts at its Erie, Pennsylvania, shop; inconel weld overlay cladding and certain pressure parts were provided by Boiler Tube Company of America, Lyman, South Carolina; and the erection was performed by TEi Construction Services, Greer, South Carolina. As with RPI, all of these companies are part of Babcock Power’s services business unit.
“The expansion increased the facility’s capacity by approximately 50%, enabling the plant to process an additional 636t of municipal solid waste per day, and to continue to power the community with clean, renewable energy while offsetting greenhouse gas production. The facility also uses reclaimed water for all process water needs which saves millions of gallons of drinkable water each year,” stated Rich Abrams, vice-president – renewable energy for Babcock Power Sales.
“Energy-from-Waste is just one area we are expanding through our bpigreensm program. We will focus this program on not only serving electric generating plants, but also industrial facilities and independent power producers using biomass, Energy-from-Waste, solar thermal, and other renewable fuels and technologies.”
RPI designs, fabricates and installs steam generator and firing systems (including pulverizers) for a wide variety of liquid, gaseous and solid fuel applications, including this highly specialized example. RPI has units operating in more than 35 countries around the world and also offers a full set of aftermarket capabilities and services for any existing steam generator design, regardless of the OEM.
The Lee County Resource Recovery Facility is operated by Covanta Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Covanta Holding Corporation (NYSE: CVA). Covanta, a world leader in the development and operation of large-scale Energy-from-Waste and other renewable energy projects, along with Lee County, completed the waste treatment expansion project in October 2007.