Georgia Power announced last Friday it took delivery of the first of three state-of-the-art, simple-cycle, gas-combustion turbines at Plant Yates in Coweta County, about an hour southwest of Atlanta.
“We continue to work with the Georgia PSC to enhance and expand our diverse generation mix to meet the needs of customers not only today, but decades into the future, GP Sr. Vice President and Sr. Production Officer Rick Anderson stated.
“The new natural gas units at Plant Yates will be a great addition to our fleet, using existing property and infrastructure to deliver the best overall value for customers and providing exciting new investment at a plant that has been an economic driver in Coweta County for decades.”
With the expansion of three new units, Plant Yates will continue to support the state’s energy needs while providing high-quality local jobs.
Increasing the size of the current plant will provide approximately 600 jobs during the construction process and add 15 permanent new jobs once completed, expanding the plant workforce to 75 fulltime jobs.
Assembled at Mitsubishi Power’s Savannah Machinery Works facility, the turbine was transported to the site by both rail and truck. At 50 feet long and 18 feet wide it weighs nearly 350 tons.
The new natural-gas units at Plant Yates will feature Mitsubishi Power M501JAC combustion turbines, which are the first new natural gas turbines to be added to Georgia Power’s fleet in a decade. When all units are in service, they will provide 1,300 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity for customers.
The air-cooled design of the new combustion turbines will provide operational flexibility by eliminating the need for steam cooling, offering a shorter start-up time of approximately 30 minutes and a lower turn down rate.
As a contingency in the unlikely event that natural gas is unavailable, the units have built-in flexibility to run on oil, with on-site oil storage capability to provide reliability and resiliency benefits to the electric system.
The new units were approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) in the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) Update and are expected to be online by the end of 2027 to meet the state’s increasing energy demand.
Georgia Power is also investing in other existing power plants. Notably, the company has been approved for combinedcycle and simple-cycle upgrades on all combustion turbines at Plant McIntosh near Savannah in the 2025 IRP. These enhancements will add an additional 268-megawatts of capacity, helping to meet the projected energy demands from existing infrastructure.
Beginning commercial operations in 1950, Plant Yates is one of Georgia’s oldest generation sites.
It was the first Georgia Power plant built to support the post-World War II economic boom.
In 2014, five of the seven coal-fired units were decommissioned, with the remaining two converted to natural gas generation.
To learn more about Georgia Power visit georgiapower. com.
— Contributed