07/21/2015 -
9:30 AM
Photo courtesy Xcel Energy
BECKER, Minn. (AP) -
Xcel Energy says a fire is now out in the coal storage barn at its Sherco power plant near Becker.
Xcel spokesman Tom Hoen says the Becker Fire Department was called
Friday when residual coal and a rubber door seal were spotted
smoldering. He says other fire departments helped out over the weekend
as hotspots developed.
But he says the fire was declared out Monday morning. All firefighters
left except for a Becker pumper truck that stayed as a precaution.
Hoen says there were no injuries and no significant equipment damage,
but costs have not been tallied. He says Sherco's three generating units
continued to operate normally.
A catastrophic failure in Sherco's Unit 3 turbine in 2011 caused more than $200 million in damage and took 22 months to fix.
Sheer size sets Sherco apart from the company’s other
generating facilities. Sherco is the largest in terms of square feet,
steam production, power generation capability and coal consumption.
Sherco’s boilers are more than 200 feet tall – taller than the dome of
the Minnesota State Capitol building. Each boiler weighs about 8 million
pounds and contains about 200 miles of steel tubing.
The Unit 3 generation building is more than 15 stories high and the
stack, or chimney, extends 650 feet – as tall as some downtown
Minneapolis office towers. The plant’s coal barn – longer than a
football field – provides dry storage for coal, cutting down on dust and
improving coal handling efficiency. A rotary car dumper, which
literally turns a rail coal car upside down, unloads one car every three
minutes and an entire train in just over six hours.
Unit 3 is 41 percent owned by Southern Minnesota Municipal Power
Agency, composed of municipal power companies operating on a cooperative
basis.
