Fresno County gets more power

New electric plant comes just in time for the hot summer months.

Published online on Saturday, May. 16, 2009

A new power plant is up and running in western Fresno County, just in time to meet upcoming electricity demands in the hot summer months.

The 116-megawatt Midway Power Plant began producing electricity May 1.

The plant, in the planning stages for more than two years, is operated by Connecticut-based Starwood Energy Group Global LLC. The company announced the plant's completion Tuesday.

The plant is near Interstate 5, about 15 miles southwest of Mendota. It uses natural gas to fuel two Pratt & Whitney turbines. The electricity is sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which has one of its main distribution lines nearby.

"The Midway facility provides critical backup support for intermittent solar and wind resources while providing enhanced reliability and load balancing during peak demand periods," Steve Zaminski, Starwood Energy's managing director, said in a prepared statement.

Instead of constantly producing power, Midway is one of many "peaker" plants built or planned in California to generate electricity only when demand is highest.

A megawatt of electricity is roughly enough to power between 300 and 500 homes.

"These plants are very important in the summer ... for peak demand," said Percy Della, a spokesman for the California Energy Commission. "Most of the use for electricity in the summer is for air-conditioning, especially in an area like Fresno County."

Starwood Energy filed its application to the energy commission in November 2006; the commission approved the plant in January 2008.

California is likely to have sufficient electricity to meet demands this summer, said Gregg Fishman, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, the agency that manages the state's power grid.

Plants such as Midway will make up for a reduction in hydroelectric power after three years of drought, Fishman added.

"In total, there's about 1,500 megawatts of new generation coming online this year, and that's really important for us," he said.

Because they can be called into service and fired up quickly, peaker plants also give grid operators greater flexibility, Fishman said.

Midway is adjacent to two other power plants, both operating since 2001.

One, also owned by Starwood Energy, is the 49-megawatt Panoche plant, originally owned by CalPeak Power LLC but was purchased along with several other CalPeak plants by Starwood in 2006.

The second is the 49-megawatt Wellhead Power Plant.

Also nearby, under construction and expected to be operational later this year, is a 400-megawatt generating plant being built by Panoche Energy Center LLC.