Southbridge Business Center Cogen Project
In Southbridge, Massachusetts Waldron-Abington, LLC completed the repowering of a steam turbine plant for what was once a large industrial complex. The project, the first design build contract for Waldron-Abington, LLC, was engineered and designed by Waldron Engineering and constructed by Abington Group of Portsmouth, NH. Waldron also provided equipment procurement services. The project took eighteen months to complete and transformed the existing oil fired power plant at the Southbridge Business Center into a high efficiency energy plant that generates electricity, steam, hot water, chilled water, compressed air, wash water and service water for more than 13 companies.
The project included installation of five new natural gas fired reciprocating engines rated at 1.35 MW each, manufactured by Duetz of Germany. Each engine exhaust system included a heat recovery steam generator (hrsg) designed to generate 50 psig steam, a hrsg diverter valve, an exhaust silencer, man-safe damper and a carbon monoxide catalyst. The exhaust systems were combined into a common stainless steel header to enable the plant to re-use the existing stack system. Jacket water heat was recovered from the engines to supply hot water to both the chilling system and the clients.
In addition to the engines, two new 25,000 lb/hr fire tube boilers, an 800 ton hot water absorption chiller, a 45 million Btu/hr cooling tower and associated plant auxiliaries were also installed. Almost two miles of piping was installed as part of this project.