Williams Lake Generating Station - Williams Lake, British Columbia, Canada

Largest Wood Waste Power Plant in North America.  Sterling Energy is extraordinarily proud of its involvement in this project. It represented our first opportunity to take full responsibility for the mobilization of a free-standing business entity to conduct all of the business associated with a power plant. Our scope of work included:

This project, as is common, is a limited partnership. At the time of our engagement, the limited partners were Tondu Energy, Inland Pacific Energy and WP Energy. The General Partner is a corporation, NW Energy (Williams Lake).

Our charter was to establish the general partner corporation as a completely independent asset management, operations and maintenance company, rendering a third-party O&M contractor unnecessary, and reducing the day to day management demands upon the partners to the absolute minimum. To accomplish this we recommended, and ultimately implemented, a management structure in which two managers worked as a team. Each has sharply defined areas of responsibility for which they are independently responsible to the Owner’s board. The Chief Engineer is responsible for the leadership of the team and for all of the operations and maintenance activities of the plant. The Business Manager is responsible for all financial management, accounting and contract administration, including those for fuel acquisition and power sales.

The total team,  including all O&M,  management and administrative staff,  was 28 persons. Two additional maintenance positions were added during the first three years of operation. Sterling Energy recruited the entire team, established the initial pay and benefits programs and managed the training program to get them ready for plant operation. The Chief Engineer, by intent, was not engaged until just before the plant began operation. During the construction and startup period, a Sterling Energy management professional acted as the Plant Manager, directing all of our own scope of activities and that of the new O&M team, as well as providing an effective management interface with contractors and equipment suppliers.

We installed a complete suite of management systems, including:  a very comprehensive operating cost and budget management program, the accounting systems, detailed management policies as well as administrative and operating procedures. We also installed a computerized maintenance and materials management program and purchased the initial spare parts inventory for the facility. Sterling Energy also developed the first year’s management plan and a 5 year O&M budget.

We have continued our relationship with this outstanding team for more than three years of commercial operation. Plant availability has been outstanding. We know of no other biomass plant with a forced outage rate of less than 1% for its first three years of operation, nor of one with an actual delivered capacity factor of more than 100% of its design rating.

Mobilization Services

• Team structure & culture
• Recruiting and staffing
• Training program management
• Initial Plant Manager
• System Sponsor Program
• Operating procedures
• Maintenance program setup
• Tools and spare parts purchasing

Business Entity Initiation

• Local pay & benefit selection
• Accounting setup and training.
• Revenue & expense modeling
• Management policies
• Business plan and budget preparation

Asset Management Services

• Annual management reviews
• Business plan and budget reviews
• Thermal performance modeling
• Dynamic fixed and variable cost model

 

Plant Location:

     Williams Lake, B.C., Canada

Commercial Operation Start:

     May 1993

Plant Description:

     60 MW Wood-Fired

     Hydrograte B&W Boiler

     GE Steam Turbine

Operating Company:

     NW Energy Inc.

Original Owners:

     Tondu Energy

     Inland Pacific Energy

     Catamount Energy

EPC Prime Contractor:

     CRS Sirrine