Water Supply & Discharge Systems

Natural gas combined-cycle energy plants often generate intense heat, especially when they power over 600,000 homes at once. This is why the new 738 megawatts West Deptford Power Plant would require the construction of a cooling system for LS Power.

The system includes pipe and pump structures designed to move water into the plant to cool the turbines. The pipes draw water from the local West Deptford greywater system to be pumped into the power plant.

Conti delivered this turnkey EPC contract to build the water supply and discharge systems that the power plant required. The team used two vertical turbine pumps with approximately 3,333 gallons per minute capacity to supply the power plant with cooling water. The pumps featured a Variable Frequency Drive System to control the volume of water to the power plant. Conti housed the pumps in a pre-engineered concrete underground pump station structure with a pre-engineered metal building that sits around an existing 72-inch corrugated metal pipe (CMP) water discharge line. To build the housing structure in the unstable soil, Conti drove 38 12-inch diameter concrete-filled pipe piles. The pipes traversed a wetland area that required drilling five feet under. Conti also provided a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) 24-inch pipeline to move the water to the power station, along with a 12-inch discharge pipe. The team installed an 8-inch electrical conduit to power the pump station and a 4-inch communication conduit for control from power plant to the pump station and vice versa.

Conti could not mobilize immediately pending the site permit, so took advantage of the down-time by scheduling material deliveries. Overall, the project was delivered on time, on schedule, and with zero safety incidents.

Conti traversed unstable soils and permitting delays to ramp up construction for the new power plant.