Great River Energy Spiritwood Project
In September of 2006, the NDIC approved investing $2 million in the Great River Energy (GRE) Spiritwood Power Plant Project. The project involves construction of a 99 MW-equivalent power plant to provide steam to the Newman Group’s new 100 million gallon per year ethanol plant and to support expansion of Cargill Malt America’s malting plant, while providing up to 62 MW of baseload electricity and up to 37 MW of peaking electricity power to the grid. The changing economics for ethanol production has proponed the ethanol portion of this project and GRE is pursuing additional parties to participate as steam tenants is the project. It is anticipated there will be 24 permanent plant employees and the power plant will use about 610,000 tons per year of beneficiated lignite from the Falkirk Mine. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Spiritwood Station was held on November 6, 2007. Building construction is underway. The number of onsite workers will be ramping up to 400 workers by this winter. The estimated cost of the power plant project is $277 million and is on-schedule to begin commercial operation by the fall of 2010. Because of the use of beneficiated lignite, which contains significantly lower water content, this project may serve as a model for other lignite opportunities outside of traditional “lignite coal country.”