We Energy – Elm Road Generating Station
- Owner: We Energy
- Project: Coal Handling System
- Location: Elm Road Generating Station, Oak Creek, Wisconsin
- Scope: Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Startup and Commissioning
Project Background
Roberts & Schaefer Company was awarded an engineering and procurement contract from Bechtel Power Corporation for the coal handling conveying system at their new Elm Road Generating Station in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The coal handling system provides bituminous coal to the new Elm Road Units 1 & 2 and PRB coal to the existing Oak Creek Units 5 & 6. The system was successfully completed and in operation in 2008 for unloading and stockout and in 2009 for the rest of the system.
The coal handling system is designed to receive coal at the rotary car dumper. The receiving hopper includes a traveling lump breaker. The received coal is transferred by a series of conveyors to either the enclosed storage building, the emergency stock-out pile conveyor with telescopic chute, or to the crusher tower. The unloading and stock-out rate is 3,000 TPH and the coal diverted to the crusher tower is variable up to 3,000 TPH. The coal is stockpiled in the storage building by a traveling stacker. The storage barn has a single pile capacity of 66,000 tons or separate piles for the bituminous and PRB coals.
The coal is reclaimed from the storage building by a traveling portal scraper reclaimer. The barn is designed for an initial reclaim conveyor with provisions for a future traveling portal scraper reclaimer and a second reclaim conveyor. The reclaim rate is variable up to 3,000 TPH. Reclaim from the emergency or the inactive coal piles are by two hoppers with Stamler reclaim feeders through a series of conveyors to the crusher tower at 2,000 TPH.
The crusher tower is divided into two areas, one for the bituminous coal for the Elm Road units and the other for the PRB coal for the Oak Creek units. Each area has a surge bin with dual belt feeders and twin roll mill crushers rated at 1,575 TPH each. Dual conveyors transfer the coal to the existing silo fill system for the Oak Creek units. A second set of dual conveyors transfer the coal to the silo fill conveyors with traveling trippers for the Elm Road units. Each unit has 5 silos in a single row, both in the same line.
All areas of the coal handling system are provided with bag house dust collection with pneumatic return to the plant coal silos or fog type suppression. An as-received and as-fired, for both Elm Road and Oak Creek (future) sampling systems are provided. Ancillary systems include washdown, conveyor creep drives, and closed circuit TV. An ash reclaim apron feeder and conveyor system at 150 TPH is also provided for adding some ash to the coal stream prior to the crusher tower.