ONE OF THE FIRST POWER PLANTS WITH ENVISION™ SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE RATING

On the shores of Lake Michigan lies a quaint Dutch-like village that bustles with residents and visitors alike. The city of Holland, known for its annual tulip festival and as one of Michigan’s top tourist destinations, is going to become one of the few cities with an Envision™ Sustainable Infrastructure-rated power plant through the development of the Holland Energy Park.

The new 145-MW combined cycle natural gas plant is scheduled to be fully operational in early 2017, replacing the city’s existing coal-fired plant. Zachry is performing the engineering work on the project to build the plant, which will showcase a variety of environmental and aesthetic features:

• A modern building design that creates an attractive eastern gateway to the city
• A 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions and the virtual elimination of solid particle pollutants
• Double the fuel efficiency of Holland’s present power generating station
• The development of open, public space that will integrate with the Macatawa Greenway trail system
• An expansion of Holland’s innovative snowmelt system

BRING ON THE HEAT

Zachry’s plant design includes a means of transferring waste heat conducted from the plant’s heat rejection system to expand Holland’s underground piping system that melts snow in the downtown area.

“A portion of the flow from the hot side of the circulating water system, flowing from the condenser to the cooling tower, is pumped through the city’s snowmelt system,” said Peter Quist, Zachry senior project manager.

Downtown Holland has the largest municipally-owned snowmelt system in the United States. It includes more than 60 miles of one-inch plastic pipe arranged under street surfaces and sidewalk brick pavers. The system can melt one inch of snow per hour when temperatures are between 15 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

“There’s roughly 7,000 gallons of water per minute running through the snowmelt system,” said Quist. “With an annual average snowfall of 75 inches, and a peak of 154 inches in 2013, the snowmelt system is a big benefit to the city.”

The practical and environmental advantages of not having to salt or plow streets help further set the Holland Energy Park apart from the majority of Zachry’s many other power plant projects.

SUSTAINABILITY INCLUDED

The level of thought involved in aligning the plant’s design with environmental standards is another unusual aspect of the project. The Envision™ Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System is the product of a joint collaboration between the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.

“I don’t know of any other companies that are doing a project like this,” Quist said. “It puts us at the forefront of integrating our design and procurement efforts with the Envision™ rating requirements.”

Envision™ provides a holistic framework for evaluating and rating the community, environmental and economic benefits of all types and sizes of infrastructure projects. It evaluates, grades, and gives recognition to infrastructure projects that use transformational, collaborative approaches to assess sustainability over the course of a project’s life cycle. When completed, the Holland Energy Park will be one of the first power plants with an Envision™ Platinum certification.

 

To read the full article in the July/August 2015 edition of the Force Report, please click here.