Faced with growing electrical demand to support local ski resorts, Bear Valley Electric Company needed to upgrade the Big Bear area power supply. The first and most obvious alternative was to request SCE to upgrade the existing transmission line feeding power to Bear Valley. SCE quoted a cost of $14 million for the upgrade along with their standard rate package. Bear Valley recognized that there might be significant cost saving alternatives available. LSW Engineers, teamed with developer KMS Energy Services, proposed an 8 MW plant with a capacity for future expansion.

Phase I included (2) two 4 MW single-cycle gas turbines based on Solar Turbines' equipment. Phase II included heat recovery boilers and steam turbines for a combined cycle capacity of 12 MW. The plant design is expandable to approximately double in size. Phase II also included heat recovery and a local district heating system for the hotels and other businesses in the area.

Pollution abatement equipment designed to South Coast Air Quality Management District rules included water injection and "So Lo NOx" proprietary equipment to get to 25 ppm. Future capability for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) was planned to get to the 9 ppm NOx level if required.

The Bear Valley site had stringent architectural regulations and the exterior elevations of the plant were designed to a "Swiss chalet" theme to suite the local requirements.

Planning and costing was completed and engineering was near completion when SCE apparently concluded that they were able to include the power line upgrade cost in their general rate base (little or no cost to Bear Valley). SCE was also able to discount the electric rate to match the economics of the LSW-designed plant.

Owner: Bear Valley Electric Company
Size: 8 MW plant
Completion Date: 1996 (Design)