Kern River Cogeneration
The Kern River Cogeneration Facility is a 300-megawatt natural-gas-fired simple-cycle cogeneration plant located in the Kern River Oil Field approximately five miles north of Bakersfield in Kern County, California. The facility comprises four 75-megawatt General Electric Frame 7EA combustion turbines, each equipped with dry low-NOx combustors and coupled to a heat-recovery steam generator. The plant supplies electricity to the Southern California Edison distribution network via a 230-kV interconnection and produces approximately 1.8 million pounds per hour of steam for oil-field injection and enhanced oil recovery. Two of the four turbine units (Units 3 and 4) are authorized to operate in either cogeneration or simple-cycle mode to respond to fluctuating steam demand and electricity market conditions.