LCRA shows off new Ferguson power plant in Horseshoe Bay
CONNIE SWINNEY• PICAYUNE STAFF
HORSESHOE BAY – Officials unveiled the new Thomas C. Ferguson Power Plant on Oct. 15 with a dedication ceremony and tours for community leaders, touting its environmentally friendly technology that will be more efficient and reliable.
More than a hundred people attended the event on the grounds of the $500 million natural gas plant, which officially went online in August and replaces the old plant built in 1974.
“It’s a technology that’s called combined cycle, so it’s basically a much more efficient means to convert gas energy into electric energy, so it’s much more efficient than the old plant,” said Andrew Valencia, vice president for generation reliability. “It allows us to generate electricity more efficiently, which will help control the cost for our wholesale customers.”
The facility, built by Fluor Corp. and managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority, is the first plant in Texas to follow new federal guidelines on greenhouse gas emissions regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, officials said.
According to the LCRA, the plant produces 30-40 percent less emissions per megawatt-hour and uses about 35 percent less fuel per megawatt-hour than the original.
“It’s an environmentally friendly plant, and it also uses much less water than the old plant, so it’s a good thing all the way around,” Valencia said.
The new Ferguson plant, which broke ground in April 2012, was also built to create less noise emissions.
“It’s a very important day for Horseshoe Bay,” Horseshoe Bay Mayor Steve Jordan said. “This is by far our largest corporate citizen, and we’re very proud of our new plant.”
During the ceremony, LCRA officials, board members and workers dedicated a plaque for the entryway and discussed the advantages of the collaboration among various entities.
While the facility was being built, the project injected about $25 million into the local economy, officials said.
“One of the things they did is they had a big pile of dirt out here that they donated to the county. We put about 30,000 cubic feet of that dirt on the county roads in our area at no cost to the county,” Llano County Precinct 1 Commissioner Peter Jones said. “The benefit of being on Lake LBJ is the fact that they do have water intake from a constant level or pass-through lake that will be able to maintain cooling for the power plant itself.”
The old plant is expected to be dismantled by next spring.
connie@thepicayune.com