Gas Liquids Engineering Ltd. (GLE) was retained by Maxim Power to replace a cooling tower at the 165 MW Milner Coal Fired Power Plant near Grand Cache Alberta. The existing wooden cooling tower had suffered a structural failure due to its age and had completely collapsed into the basin while the plant was in operation. A replacement was required urgently as the power plant was unable to run without a tower. The scope of the project required mechanical, civil and electrical engineering design efforts, procurement and construction support. The existing tower was demolished and a replacement tower was ordered, installed and in operation three and a half months after the collapse of the existing tower.
To expedite the project, a pre-fabricated, 14 cell modular steel tower solution was selected. The delivery and installation time was significantly shorter than replacing the tower with an in-kind stick built field erected tower. The tower solution provided is designed to reject 850 MMBtu/hr of heat with a water circulation flow rate of 65,000 gpm.
3D laser scanning of the existing foundations, piping, buildings and equipment was required due to limited drawings being available of the existing facility. The new equipment, piping, structural steel and cable tray were designed in CAD using the 3D scan. In addition, line locating of all the existing undergrounds was required as there were numerous services to avoid including water lines, gas lines and a fire water loop. Since the configuration of the new tower was significantly different than the existing tower, the new tower was placed on pile mounted structural steel adjacent to the existing tower basin with the tower cell outlets piped into the existing basin. The electrical scope included a new MCC building for the tower fans and a PLC that required integration of the new controls with the existing older DCS control systems.