Project Highlights
- As the plant site was below the floodplain, construction teams drove over 900 gravel-filled pilings deep into the soil to create a stable foundation five feet above grade.
- The structure features a building envelope around the engine hall that reduces sound impact to the adjacent community.
- A 60-kW solar array adjacent to engine building provides renewable energy to the plant office.
- Construction was completed two months ahead of schedule.
Project Description
In March 2016, Rochester Public Utilities (RPU) awarded the Westside Energy Station (WES) engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) to Westside Energy Partners (WEP), a joint venture between Sargent & Lundy and Boldt Company. WES is a new natural gas-fired RICE generation station in Rochester, Minnesota consisting of five 9‑MW RICE units.
As the EPC contractor, WEP was responsible for the engineering, balance-of-plant (BOP) equipment and material procurement, construction, and commissioning of all work necessary to install the station, including the associated mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and controls, and civil, structural, and architectural scopes.
Project Scope
Sargent & Lundy’s tasks included:
- Development of Conceptual Design, including site plot plans and general arrangement drawings not only to locate the RICE units and BOP equipment on site, but also to consider several key items for the overall project.
- Detailed engineering, design, and procurement for BOP items including preparing and administering complete specification packages. Our detailed design covered mechanical/electrical process and BOP interconnects, civil works, transmission and distribution, and controls interface.
- Construction management and commissioning for mechanical, electrical, and instrumentation and controls (I&C) expertise to support the project startup/commissioning. Sargent & Lundy’s commissioning team worked closely with Boldt to provide support through the precommissioning, commissioning, and integrated plant testing phases of the project to place the facility components, equipment, subsystems, and systems into an initial operating state.
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