Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Hoosier Energy) is a generation and transmission utility supplying electric power and related services to 18 member distribution cooperatives that serve more than 290,000 customers in 48 central and southern Indiana counties and 11 southeastern Illinois counties. The Merom Station is a Hoosier Energy coal-fired power plant consisting of two boilers, Units 1 and 2.

As part of the FGD system upgrade, AECOM installed The project team successfully implemented a new, innovative air pollution control technology to meet the most stringent sulfuric acid mist emission limit imposed on an existing coal-fired power plant, to date. The team demonstrated to that not only could the new AECOM technology achieve the required performance, but that it would not adversely impact other plant systems, as is common with competing SO3 mitigation technologies. Following a successful startup, our team also demonstrated that the technology (SBS Injection™) could provide significant plant operational and economic benefits including improved energy efficiency, reliability, and performance of other plant environmental equipment. Testing has also shown that SBS technology is effective in reducing mercury emissions, thereby eliminating the need to install supplemental controls to comply with new environmental regulations.

This EPC project installed injections lances, manifolds, mixing devices, and an injection enclosure on each unit. Common equipment included a reagent unloading station, a 400,000 gallon double-walled reagent storage tank, dilution water storage tank, and a reagent injection pump skid. Compressed air and water softening systems were installed.

In spite of coordination challenges with four other capital projects, work was completed on time and under budget.

Challenges Faced

  • The project included a very tight outage schedule and received notice to proceed only 6 weeks prior to the first outage.
  • About a month into the project, AECOM was informed that Unit 1 did not have enough power capacity to run both of the new air compressors required for the system. We installed temporary power from Unit 2 to Unit 1 to power the second air compressor at Unit 1.
  • This project was conducted simultaneously with four other capital projects, which made coordination extremely important particularly during unit outages. In spite of this challenge, the work was completed on time and under budget.