Gas-powered electricity plant Geneva Generation Facility is expected to undergo engine maintenance due to generator impacts from extreme heat in summer 2024, officials said.

The Geneva City Council Monday unanimously approved a no-bid contract for $99,880 for MaK Americas Inc. for required maintenance work on the engines.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency permit for the city’s power generation facility requires an inspection on the valve train timing gears – that can only be done with expertise of factory service engineers, officials said. MaK Americas is a division of Caterpillar that is responsible for support for this type of engine.

“This maintenance is required in order for GGF (Geneva Generation Facility) to continue operating. The urgency for this project is due to the intense heat we experienced this past summer (2024),” City Administrator Alex Voigt said. “Typically, this would be budgeted under capital (expenses) but it did have to be moved up from the anticipated 2027 service date.”

Projects in the electric division’s capital budget came in under budget, Voigt said, so that savings will cover the project cost.

The Geneva Generation Facility, at 1700 Averill Road, has been in service since 2004. The gas-fired plant generates electricity when demand is the highest during the summer to keep customers’ capacity costs down.

According to a memo from Superintendent of Electric Services Aaron Holton, the Geneva Generation Facility saved ratepayers approximately $4.2 million for the summer of 2025.

“The summer of 2024 was extraordinary in the number of hours that GGF (Geneva Generation Facility) was called on to operation, with all of the engines running approximately 400 hours between June 15 and Sept. 15,” Holton’s memo stated. “The inspection of the timing gear-train was not planned for until the spring of 2027 at the earliest.”

The maintenance is required in order for the IEPA permit so the generation facility is operational for next summer, Holton said.

“What led us to this, specifically, was at the end of the season when things slow down a little bit, we task the plant operator to perform this maintenance,” Holton said.

While the maintenance manual says it takes 30 minutes to do check valve train timing gears – it takes about eight hours of work to disassemble the engine and support structures to get to the timing gears to do the inspection, he said. Electric division staff will assist in the disassembly and reassembly of the engines.

Caterpillar will send two service engineers to Geneva for 20 days, but if it takes less than 20 days to do all the work, the city will only be billed for their time on-site, Holton’s memo stated.