Critical improvements

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Posted on Jun 25 2025 in A Co-op Perspective, Bartholomew County REMC, Clark County REMC, Daviess-Martin County REMC, Decatur County REMC, Dubois REC, Harrison REMC, Henry County REMC, Jackson County REMC, Orange County REMC, Southeastern Indiana REMC, Southern Indiana Power, WIN Energy REMC
Plant Manager Kent Schmohe and Hoosier Energy Director of Generation Strategy Cory Samm on site at Holland Energy Plant

The Holland Energy Plant, located in central Illinois and co-owned by Hoosier Energy and Wabash Valley Power Alliance, has undergone the largest outage in its two-decade-old history this spring and summer.

Three major projects have been the focus at the natural gas facility: steam turbine inspection, gas turbine hot gas path inspection, and replacement of both Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) LP feed water heater tube bundles.

“The LP water heater is taking care of some longstanding issues we’ve had both with the reliability of that unit, as far as leaks, as well as some back pressure on the unit,” Holland Plant Manager Kent Schmohe said. “It’s been a three-year project in the making.”

Getting the tube bundle replacements to the plant was an undertaking, as the journey began in Thailand. A ship carried them across the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, and to the Port of Houston, spanning 12,700 miles and 26 days. From there, the final 879 miles required special load semis pulling special trailers due to the size and weight of the bundles.

Holland Energy Plant

The rest of the work is no less crucial. The steam turbine inspection must be done every 10 years.

“It’s really a report card on how we operate and how things are going as far as steam quality and how we operate the plant,” said Schmohe.

After opening the turbine and taking it to a shop in Milwaukee, the inspection found issues with the rotor and cracks in the leads. Resolving these issues took more time and money than expected, as Toshiba, the manufacturer, worked to get things back up to speed.

“We took care of those discoveries to make sure the unit is going to stay reliable for the next 10 years,” said Schmohe.

Last, but not least, the hot gas path on gas turbine No. 2 needs maintenance every five years.

“We use GE for that work,” Schmohe said. “There were very few discovery items, but we took care of those, so it should be ready to run for the summer and years to come.”

Over the past few years, Holland Energy Plant has been breaking records — achieving higher capacity, increasing operating time, and reducing restarts. This made the outage critically important.