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NPEP Success Story: Appalachian Power Company Amos Plant
Appalachian Power Company's (APCO's) Amos Plant Reduces the Amount of PCB-containing Transformer / Rectifier Sets
Amos Plant is located in Saint Albans, WV and is a power plant that was commissioned in 1971. Construction was completed in 1973. The plant has two 800 MW units and one 1300 MW unit. Amos Plant is owned by a subsidiary of American Electric Power, a company entering its second century of operation. There are 349 employees at the plant.
Electrostatic precipitators (ESPs) are in place to control particulate emissions at the Amos Plant and are an essential component of the generation infrastructure. The ESPs depend on transformer / rectifier (T/R) sets to provide the electrostatic charge required to properly remove particulates from the unit’s exhaust stream. The Plant voluntarily embarked on a program to remove all PCB T/R sets from service and has completed that change-out.
APCO / Amos Plant's NPEP Goal
APCO / Amos Plant joined NPEP in February 2008. The stated goal was to execute a voluntary source reduction of PCBs by switching out all of Unit 3’s PCB-containing T/R sets with sets containing no PCBs. Other PCB T/R sets had voluntarily been removed before. American Electric Power, the parent company, has a plan in place to voluntarily retire all PCB T/R sets at the AEP power plants over time.
Source Reduction, Recycling, and Recovery Alternatives Considered
The alternative chosen was equipment modification and replacement. The PCB-containing T/R sets were replaced with T/R sets that utilized electrical insulating fluid that contained no PCBs.
Hurdles Faced
Staging of the crane to allow safe removal of the T/R sets and actual removal was the biggest physical challenge that was faced in accomplishing this source reduction. The removed transformers were trucked to a TSCA-licensed facility for compliant disposal.
Waste Minimization Results
Plant management committed to remove all PCB T/R sets, thereby reducing the amount of PCBs contained in the replacement T/R sets to zero. The total weight of the PCB articles removed was ~91,000 pounds. Cost for the project was $2.4 million for labor, materials and TSCA-compliant disposal. A key benefit of this project is the elimination of the potential for a PCB spill and resulting remediation/clean-up from potential sources.
Lessons Learned
Careful planning and attention to detail yielded a safe, environmentally compliant, and successful project.