Garden City S-2 Unit
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After design approval from the Kansas Corporation Commission and the federal Rural Utilities Service, ground breaking ceremonies were held on September 29, 1970. The plant became operational August 16, 1983. The total cost of plant construction was approximately $16 million.
OPERATION
The S-2 unit is a gas-fired, steam unit capable of outputting 94 megawatts. Water circulates inside tubes in the boiler walls, and the intense heat inside the boiler converts the water to steam. The high-pressure steam is directed into the General Electric turbine, causing it to rotate at high speed, turning the generator that produces the electric power. Sunflower’s transmission network carries the electricity to its member cooperatives and to non-member power customers
WATER USAGE
When originally constructed, up to 16,000 acre-feet of water was drawn from wells located on the property and used in the steam/cooling cycle once, then returned to the Arkansas river thru underground pipes. Today, this type of "once-thru" type of cooling is no longer in use. We now recycle the water to reduce the amount of water drawn from underground aquifers and have reduced the total amount of water used at the site to under 3,000 acre-feet per year.