Second natural gas turbine arrives at Georgia Power’s Plant Yates

Caption

New natural gas turbine delivered to Georgia Power’s Plant Yates.

Credit: Courtesy of Georgia Power

The second of three new Mitsubishi Power natural gas turbines has arrived at Plant Yates in Coweta County, Georgia Power announced Monday in a news release.

The first new turbine arrived in August and the third is supposed to arrive in early 2026. The three are expected to come online in 2027, generating 1,300 megawatts of capacity for customers, according to the release.

The three new combustion turbines at Plant Yates were approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission in the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan Update to meet new energy demand in the state.

As a backup in the rare event that natural gas is unavailable, the units can also operate on oil, with fuel stored on site to help keep power flowing during disruptions.

And with relatively minor future upgrades, the turbines could also use a hydrogen mix as fuel, an option the company says could help reduce carbon emissions, according to the release. Georgia Power recently partnered with Mitsubishi Power on a 50% hydrogen-blending project at Plant McDonough-Atkinson.

Each turbine weighs nearly 350 tons and is 50-feet long and 18-feet wide.

Higher efficiency and greater output

The three new gas turbines at Plant Yates are designed to produce more electricity and operate more efficiently than older simple-cycle turbines. The Mitsubishi Power M501JAC turbines use air cooling instead of steam cooling, a design that allows them to start up more quickly and adjust output more easily to match changes in electricity demand.

“The three advanced-class gas turbines at Plant Yates will provide higher output and greater efficiency than previous generations of simple-cycle CT designs,” the release reads. “The air-cooled Mitsubishi Power M501JAC Series design provides operational flexibility by eliminating the need for steam cooling, offering a shorter start-up time of approximately 30 minutes and a lower turn down rate.”

Higher efficiency means less natural gas needs to be burned to generate a specific amount of electricity, directly resulting in fewer on-site carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per kilowatt-hour generated.

Though higher efficiency helps, it does not eliminate the climate impacts of burning natural gas.

Compared with coal, high-efficiency combined-cycle gas plants can cut carbon dioxide emissions by roughly half per unit of electricity generated. In that sense, efficiency does offset some of the climate harm relative to dirtier fossil fuels.

However, natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and its climate impact extends beyond what comes out of the plant.

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a far more potent heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide over the short term, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Methane leaks can occur during drilling, processing and pipeline transport, and those upstream emissions can significantly erode, or in some cases negate, the climate advantage gained from higher efficiency at the power plant.

In addition, building new high-efficiency gas plants can lock in decades of fossil fuel use, potentially slowing the transition to zero-carbon sources like solar and battery storage solutions.

Expansion to help meet growing demand for electricity

Plant Yates is one of Georgia’s oldest power plants and has been operating since 1950. In 2014, five of its seven coal-fired units were retired, and the remaining two were converted to natural gas.

Expanding this site will help the company meet growing electricity demand while supporting local employment. The project is expected to create about 600 construction jobs and add 15 permanent positions, expanding the plant’s workforce to roughly 75 full-time employees.

Natural gas currently provides 40% of Georgia Power’s annual energy generation. The company has been approved for combined-cycle and simple-cycle upgrades on all combustion turbines at Plant McIntosh near Savannah in the 2025 IRP, which will add 268 megawatts of capacity.

Natural gas is also a part of Georgia Power’s ongoing filing with the Public Service Commission seeking approval for new power resources. The company is asking regulators to approve five new natural gas combined-cycle units, totaling about 3,700 megawatts, to be built at Plants Bowen, McIntosh and Wansley.

Georgia Power says the units will help maintain grid reliability and support economic growth as electricity demand increases across the state.

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Macon Telegraph.