Spiritwood Station is located approximately one mile south of Spiritwood, North Dakota, on a 100-acre site adjacent to Cargill Malt. The plant itself resides on approximately 10 acres. Learn how you could purchase steam from Spiritwood Station. |
Spiritwood Station Great River Energy’s Spiritwood Station is the first of its kind in North Dakota; it will generate two primary products:
The plant has the capacity to generate up to 99 megawatts (MW) of electricity for the regional energy market. The combined heat and power plant also supplys steam to the Cargill Malt plant near Spiritwood, North Dakota. Otter Tail Power Company, as the local service provider, will supply electricity to the Cargill Malt plant. View project fact sheet »View applications and reports » |
Highly efficient
Combined heat and power plants such as Spiritwood Station are highly energy efficient because they make use of the energy in the steam which, at most plants, is released to cooling towers. Spiritwood Station sends some of the steam it produces to Cargill Malt for use in its production processes. Some interesting facts:
Quality fuel source
Spiritwood Station’s fuel source is lignite coal, which is converted to a higher-efficiency fuel using innovative technologies. The lignite is dried and refined at Great River Energy’s Coal Creek Station near Underwood, N.D. About 610,000 tons per year will be shipped to Spiritwood Station. The dried and refined coal is referred to as DryFineTM and has the following benefits:
Technology that controls emissions
In addition to utilizing beneficiated lignite, Spiritwood Station uses Best Available Control Technologies to control emissions. State-of-the-art technologies make Spiritwood Station one of the cleanest coal-based power plants in the world.
Water source
The primary sources of water for Spiritwood Station is wastewater from the Cargill Malt plant and water from the City of Jamestown and Stutsman Rural Water District.
Spiritwood Station a long-term asset
The decision to build Spiritwood Station was made when Great River Energy faced a strong growth in demand for electricity by its member cooperatives in the mid 2000s. At that time, Great River Energy moved forward on plans to build a long-term asset to meet that growing demand for generation. During the construction phase, the United States was hit by the recession, and the five year growth forecast became marginal. Thus, Great River Energy delayed the in-service date of the plant to minimize the cost impact to members. Great River Energy’s members will again need more baseload electricity in the future, and that will help make Spiritwood Station a valuable long-term investment. This will occur as demand and electricity prices increase via a turnaround in the economy, and as additional markets develop for the available process steam from the plant.
Proposed cellulosic biomass refinery
Dakota Spirit AgEnergy, currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of Great River Energy, is working to develop a "hybrid" biomass refinery to be located adjacent to Great River Energy's Spiritwood Station combined heat & power plant at Spiritwood, ND. The biorefinery would utilize steam from Spiritwood Station.
The hybrid biomass refinery is planned in two phases: Phase I would consist of a conventional dry mill ethanol plant that would serve as the backbone facility and establish the complete balance of plant; Phase II would be a scaled down, incremental cellulosic biomass front end.
The hybrid refinery would utilize corn, wheat straw and corn stover for its feedstocks. The refinery would then produce ethanol, dried distillers grains (DDGs), corn oil, molasses and lignin fuel pellets.
A cellulosic biomass refinery converts biomass (proposed wheat straw or corn stover) into a variety of higher value energy products including cellulosic ethanol, C5 molasses and purified lignin pellets (solid fuel).
Learn more »Biomass study
Great River Energy and project participants — The Great Plains Institute, the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, the North Dakota Department of Agriculture, the North Dakota Farmers Union and the North Dakota Natural Resources Trust — studied the feasibility of utilizing biomass at Spiritwood Station through a research and development grant from the North Dakota Renewable Energy Council. Study results highlight the technical feasibility and economics of supplying biomass to the facility from various sources.
View the study »
