Great River Energy's power plant at Spiritwood is getting geared up to go online this fall.
Communications Supervisor for Great River Energy, Lyndon Anderson says the plant will fire up its natural gas boilers next month and begin turbine generation. In August, the coal boilers will be fired. Anderson says the plant will be completely online on November 1st. The Spiritwood plant was built in 2011 but has been offline all this time - Anderson says the economic recession put a damper on demand for electricity, and therefore a hold on the start-up of the plant.
"Now demand for electricity is building back up, plus the fact that adjacent to the combined heat and power plant we have the ethanol plant going up - Dakota Spirit Ag Energy, that's going up right now - and that will be up and running by spring 2015. So combined, the increased demand, the demand coming back, plus another steam host for the steam from Spiritwood station and the economics are looking good. That's why we're getting the station up and running this fall."
Anderson says there are 25 jobs at the plant and that it is currently fully staffed. He says employees are undergoing trainings to fine tune their understanding of the components of operation. Anderson says the plant will be a good long term investment for the region.
