Project of the Year - Industrial

East River Repowering Project

The East River Repowering Project entailed plugging in an additional 360 megawatts of power to stabilize steam rates and to maintain reliability of energy production for steam customers of Consolidated Edison, the major New York utility.

But completing the $235 million job also involved a big constraint. The project called for the installation of two dual-fuel combustion turbines, two heat-recovery steam generators, a 5,000 GPM demineralization facility, and 80,000 sq. ft. of process piping - all without increasing the size of the station.

"The site logistics were a big challenge, especially because it was close to the river," one jury member said.

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The facility sits in a confined space in lower Manhattan bounded by city streets on three sides and the FDR Drive on the other. With virtually no lay-down area to work in, the project team had to creatively manage the job without interrupting power and steam distribution to customers.

Retrofitting new equipment into an existing structure wasn't easy. "The real challenge was within the building, because they had to strengthen and readapt part of the facility," added another awards panel member.

The schedulers, engineers, and supervisors closely coordinated delivery and installation of materials and equipment to the site. An early task was offloading equipment via barge from the Hudson River. The team had to transport equipment to the site and use two 650-ton cranes to lower the pieces into the facility through construction openings in the roof and sidewall.

Due to the tight work site, the project team also decided to prefabricate the heat-recovery steam generators and combustion turbine components at the Marine Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, N.J., only delivering them as needed.

But even those solutions required adjustments. The prefabricated materials exceeded normal shipping weight and size limits, requiring special planning for road logistics and off-loading at the site.

The job also entailed construction of a new, onsite water treatment plant employing a 9,000 GMP reverse-osmosis system to produce pure water for steam generation. One juror cited that element specifically, saying it contributed to "a very complex project."

The project not only allows the station to increase production, but also allows Con Edison to close its less-efficient Waterside Generating Station on First Avenue. The station will reduce overall emissions by up to 70 percent compared to the Waterside Station.