Great River Energy’s Coal Creek Station is a two-unit, 1100-MW, coal-fired power plant in North Dakota. Over the past several years, the plant has undergone many changes that needed to be incorporated into an arc-flash model to determine the incident energy and hazard level for appropriate PPE.
To develop an updated arc-flash model, reduce facility personnel’s risk of exposure to electric energy, and comply with electrical safety requirements for employees (NFPA 70E) and industry standards (IEEE 1584-2018), Barr conducted a power system analysis.
Barr built a new model based on existing drawings, old model data, and other existing information. We verified that field protective-device settings were accurate, added a DC battery system to the model and panelboards with over 2000A fault current, completed a short-circuit analysis, and summarized our findings and mitigation recommendations.
Barr’s analysis satisfied the requirements of NFPA 70E, renewed confidence in the model’s accuracy and settings, enables field personal to wear appropriate arc-flash PPE, and identified areas of high incident energy for future mitigation.