Spiritwood Station

Location: Spiritwood, ND

Client: Great River Energy

Services: Preliminary and final geotechnical evaluations, construction materials testing, nondestructive examination

Year: 2008-2010

Currently under construction, Great River Energy’s Spiritwood Station is the first of its kind in North Dakota. Once it’s up and running in 2012, the combined heat and power plant will be fueled by Dry Fine^® lignite, and will generate 555,000 pounds of steam per hour and up to 99 megawatts of electricity.

The plant structures are supported on driven piles, mat foundations and spread foundations. Our responsibilities for this project included the observation and testing of soil, concrete, structural steel, cement grout and epoxy grout placements for column and equipment bases. We inspected rebar, wick drain installations and anchor bolts; verified the bearing capacity for footing subgrades; performed cone penetrometer testing; observed bolt assemblies, pipe installation, pile driving activities and coating applications for foundation walls and sump pits; and performed dry film thickness measurement and testing for pipe coatings.