The rapid completion of natural gas-fired power plant Carty Unit 1 was the result of teamwork and detailed planning. Portland General Electric Co. initiated development of the power plant in 2013 and stepped in to lead the project in December 2015, finishing the project the following July.

The 440-megawatt plant’s major components include a combustion turbine generator, a reheat steam turbine generator and a heat recovery steam generator. The time typically needed for a power plant’s first fire of combustion turbines to commercial operation is six months. At Carty, this was performed in 30 days. Similarly, the typical time for a restoration outage was cut from five to six weeks to one week. The power plant is now exceeding its output guarantees and can produce enough electricity to serve about 300,000 residential customers.

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