Just a few hours up the road from the Long Ridge Energy Center, another power plant job is making news of its own.
At 625 megawatts, Hill Top Energy Center in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania, is Kiewit’s largest single-unit combined-cycle power plant project to date.
When it comes online this summer, the facility will serve customers in Pittsburgh, along with communities in West Virginia and Ohio.
The contract itself is a little different than the typical power job, said Project Sponsor Joe Grier.
“We’re responsible for the full scope on this project. That includes a two-mile raw water intake pipeline and pump facility located on the Monongahela River, along with a three-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line to our substation. Our base contract also includes the centerline equipment supplied by our partner GE.”
The team was also charged with quickly responding to an accelerated schedule caused by the state-mandated COVID-19 shutdown in April 2020.
Despite the suspension, the original deadline is firm.
To keep the project on schedule, the team increased project manpower by around 20%, bringing the total of direct and subcontractor craft at peak to 475.
“We look forward to finishing on the original contract date despite working in the COVID environment and with the April work delay,” Grier said. “When we do that, it will be a pretty spectacular completion to the project.”
