Texas City Cogeneration

The second major IPP project in which Westinghouse participated was developed around 1985 by Internorth Natural Gas of Omaha, Nebraska. The plant location in Texas City is about 35 miles southeast of the Capital Cogeneration project site in Bayport-Pasadena, Texas. Internorth's concept was to use Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act's (PURPA) rules to build a 400MW cogeneration plant that would sell the power to the Houston Power and Light Company and export steam to a nearby Union Carbide Corporation's (now Dow Chemical Company) plant. At the same time, the plant, as a QF, would be exempt from the Fuel Use Act (FUA) and be an excellent new power generation customer for Internorth's natural gas.

A determined team effort—headed by Marketing Manager Reg McIntyre and the Combustion Turbine Systems Division's (CTSD) U.S. Sales Manager Mark Wohlschlegel—was intensely focused on this negotiation. Since this was unfortunately taking place at the same time as the W501D5's fourth stage turbine blade reliability issue, an engineering team led by Augie Scalzo was also assigned to satisfy Internorth that issue had been addressed and that the design was sound.

It was truly an all-out tean effort, conducted under the intense pressure of a directive from upper Westinghouse management to obtain the order at a time when U.S. gas turbine market was still at a very low level.

Westinghouse did obtain the order for three W501D5 EconoPac gas turbine packages to be installed at the Texas City Cogeneration plant. The three units included the last W501D5 built at the factory in Lester, Pennsylvania, before it was closed late in 1986, and the first two engines built in Japan under a new business arrangement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), a long-time Westinghouse licensee.

The Texas City Cogeneration plant went into commercial service early in 1987. At about the same time, about 100 remaining managers and engineers of the Combustion Turbine Systems Division left its division headquarters in Concordville, Pensylvania, to join the rest of Westinghouse Power Generation already at the World Headquarters in Orlando, Florida. 

Shortly after the Texas City plant was built, Internorth merged with the Houston Natural Gas Company, and moved its headquarters to Houston. Shortly after that, the joint company changed its name to ENRON.  Today, the Texas City Plant is owned by Calpine Corporation.