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| Friday, October 07, 2005 |
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CityCenter in line to be top power userMGM Mirage's mammoth new Strip development, Project CityCenter, will not only be the state's largest megaresort, it will also be its largest energy user. The $5 billion complex of hotels, residences, shops and casinos will require enough electricity to power 91,000 homes. The 66-acre project tentatively calls for a 60-story, 4,000-room hotel-casino; two 400-room, non-gaming hotels; 1,640 luxury condominiums; and 500,000 square feet of shops, restaurants and showrooms. With a staff of 12,000, Project CityCenter could conservatively see 25,000 to 30,000 people a day when it opens in late 2009. That's roughly double the population of Boulder City.
MGM Mirage last month awarded a six-year, $100 million contract to Siemens, the Munich-based energy giant, to provide CityCenter's electrical and building technologies. But the contract size could grow as design details become finalized, said Ken Aurichio, a Siemens spokesman, who likened the project's size and complexity to the firm's work on Houston's 69,500-seat Reliant Stadium, home to the NFL's Houston Texans. CityCenter is currently halfway through a 20-month design cycle. San Francisco-based Gensler is the executive architect with New York's Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects as master-plan architect. "It's the largest single-site project in Southern Nevada, on par with a gold mining operation," said Jeff Ceccarelli, Nevada Power Company's senior vice president of service delivery and operations. "It will require roughly five to six times the [electrical] load of a large Strip hotel casino." CityCenter is estimated to require a peak load of 80 megawatts, eventually ramping up to 130 megawatts upon build-out, says Nevada Power. One megawatt is enough to service 700 homes. The new Strip complex will account for roughly 2.2 percent of the Las Vegas Valley's total electrical consumption on a hot summer day. That doesn't include any on-site emergency back-up generators -- a common practice among Strip operators. "One hundred and thirty megawatts seems high," said Omar Siddiqui, a senior associate with the Electrical Power Research Institute Solutions of Palo Alto, Calif. "The Venetian Resort Casino, for example, has a peak demand of 12 megawatts. But the standard energy metrics are thrown out the window with these types of projects because they are so unique." "As plans are finalized, we anticipate CityCenter's energy usage estimates will fall off dramatically through our use of conservation techniques, new technology and green-building practices in our design and operation," said Gordon Absher, a MGM Mirage spokesman, in a written statement. Nevada Power, meanwhile, is anticipating $75 million worth of necessary infrastructure improvements in order to service the added grid demand. The work entails expanding four nearby substations as well as transmission line enhancements. Nevada Power will also build a new substation with five transformers. "From our perspective, it's the most extreme case of an infill project," Ceccarelli said. "The load normally grows outward. Now we have to bring it inward across developed areas in order to carry supply, which makes it tough." The two parties have been discussing the project's infrastructure needs over the last six months. MGM, in the meantime, is still weighing whether to purchase electricity from Nevada Power or over the open grid from a merchant supplier. "MGM is eager to resolve the power supply issues," said Herb Goforth, Nevada Power's director of technical services and support. "Contracts should be finalized in the next few months." tonyillia@aol.com | 702-303-5699 |
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