{"id":22921,"date":"2025-03-31T11:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T17:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-electric-works-to-install-new-generation-at-bluffview\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:20:12","slug":"farmington-electric-works-to-install-new-generation-at-bluffview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-electric-works-to-install-new-generation-at-bluffview\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington Electric works to install new generation at Bluffview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=d8c95056-8400-5591-8662-97ec321bf42e&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2062\" alt=\"Reciprocating internal combustion engines are being moved to their final location at the Bluffview Power Plant in south Farmington. (Courtesy photo)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Reciprocating internal combustion engines are being moved to their final location at the Bluffview Power Plant in south Farmington. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Farmington Electric Utility System is in the process of installing 18 megawatts of reciprocating internal combustion engines at the Bluffview Power Plant. They are similar to the engines that power automobiles.<\/p>\n<p>FEUS Director Hank Adair told the <em id=\"emphasis-2f2b8451ef3c4b08b48e2c58824150e3\">TriCity Record<\/em> the factory testing has been completed and the units have been shipped to the site. He said the units have been moved into the building that will house them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re completing that building out with all the ancillary equipment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Adair said the utility received two, nine-megawatt W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4 34SG units. He said crews have completed a \u201clarge portion\u201d of the civil work and underground piping.<\/p>\n<p>One of the reasons the utility needed to add generation capacity was because the San Juan Generating Station shuttered in 2022. FEUS was a partial owner of the coal-fired power plant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy switching from coal to natural gas, the project aligns with the global trend toward cleaner, lower-carbon fuels,\u201d W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4 stated in an announcement in December.<\/p>\n<p>Farmington has contracted with the local company Casey Industrial to do the construction work.<\/p>\n<p>Adair said 51 contractors are on site and the majority of those working on it are from the local area.<\/p>\n<p>He expects the RICE units will come online at the start of October.<\/p>\n<p>The total estimated cost for the project is about $45 million. This investment is part of a portfolio that the utility presented to the city as part of its integrated resource plan four years ago. The plan called for adding 30 megawatts of solar, 48 megawatts of combined cycle and 18 megawatts of RICE generation.<\/p>\n<p>Adair said the RICE generation will initially run using natural gas, however they are designed so FEUS can switch to different fuel blends including a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen if desired.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"naviga-map\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?q=36.7165109%2C-108.2151591&amp;z=15&amp;output=embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" style=\"border:0;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Map\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n<p>According to W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4, the engines can also use biogas and synthetic methane.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we like with the RICE engines too is, again, they\u2019re very flexible, not only the fuel type,\u201d Adair said. \u201cWe can start and stop them quite quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As more renewable energy resources come onto the grid, having flexible generation assets that can power up or down relatively quickly is important.<\/p>\n<p>Adair said another advantage of the RICE technology is that it can perform well at Farmington\u2019s altitude.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey match everything we would like to see,\u201d Adair said.<\/p>\n<p>Another advantage W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4 touts is that the units \u201crequire minimal water consumption,\u201d which can be an important consideration in the desert Southwest.<\/p>\n<p>FEUS is not the only utility in the Southwest to acquire RICE generators. Tucson Electric Power brought some online at the H. Wilson Sundt Generating Station in 2019. At the time, TEP stated that the RICE units could help balance the intermittent resources such as wind and solar that the utility receives from facilities in New Mexico and Arizona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Internal combustion engines are tested, moved into building<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77904,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22921\/revisions\/77904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22921"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}