Burns & McDonnell Wins Contract from Denton, Texas, for a New 225 MW Fast-Start Power Facility

The City of Denton, Texas, has awarded a contract to Burns & McDonnell for comprehensive engineer/procure/construct (EPC) services for the new 225 megawatt (MW) Denton Energy Center. The new natural gas-fired power facility will feature reciprocating engine technology configured to provide flexible, fast-start power to Denton Municipal Electric Utilities as the city-owned utility progressively integrates more renewable power resources into its network.

The plant will feature twelve 18-cylinder Wärtsilä 18V50SG engines in a new power facility that will be designed and built by Burns & McDonnell. Each engine can be dispatched separately to balance power demand as needed. The City of Denton currently receives approximately 40 percent of its power supply from renewable energy and intends to move toward 70 percent renewable energy by 2019.

"Burns & McDonnell has been serving the public power industry for more than 100 years so we are proud to help the City of Denton meet its goals to become one of the greenest cities in America by turning to renewables as its source of baseload power," says Rick Halil, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the power generation group for Burns & McDonnell. "Reciprocating engine technology is an excellent way to help them meet this objective. Burns & McDonnell has designed and built a majority of the utility-scale reciprocating engine projects in the country as more and more utilities turn to reciprocating engines to balance their power needs."

Engineering design is already underway and construction will begin in early 2017. The engines and related equipment are expected to be delivered during the second half of 2017 and the plant will begin commercial operation by July 2018.

The Denton Energy Center will be one of the most flexible and efficient generating facilities in the industry due to its modular nature in which each Wärtsilä engine can be dispatched independently to quickly scale output up or down with minimal sacrifice in peak efficiency. The flexibility will become increasingly important as Denton continues to add more intermittent wind and solar power to its energy portfolio. The plant will also be one of the cleanest natural gas-fired facilities in the industry as it will utilize selective catalytic reduction to minimize pollutants.