Mid-American Power, LLC has bought a 53-Mw, coal-fired generating plant, put it on the power grid, and plans to convert the facility into a 300-Mw, gas-fired, combined-cycle plant. Mid-American bought the E.J. Stoneman Station in Cassville, WI, from Dairyland Power Cooperative after almost two years of negotiations. The companies making up Mid-American include Power Systems, Ltd., Burns & McDonnell Engineering, Inc., and WPS-Power Development, Inc. The plant supplies energy to two regional utilities.
Power Markets Development Co., with its partners, will invest $250 million in a 155-Mw, gas-fired plant in the Aguaytia region of Peru. The consortium is headed by Maple Gas Corp.; PMDC is a subsidiary of Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. The project also includes drilling five gas-field wells and constructing about 250 miles of high-voltage electric transmission lines across the Andes mountains.
The second phase of the Hawaiian Biomass Gasification Program will determine the economic feasibility of producing synthetic gas from bagasse, the residual fiber left from processed sugar cane. Program participants include the U.S. Department of Energy, Westinghouse Electric Corp., Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, and Institute of Gas Technology. Testing is set to begin in early 1997.