Widows Creek Fossil Plant
Decommissioned coal-fired power plant in Jackson County, Alabama, United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Widows Creek Fossil Plant (also known as the Widows Creek Power Plant) was a 1.6-gigawatt (1,600 MW) coal power plant, 4.8 miles (7.7 km) east of Stevenson, Alabama, USA. The plant, operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, generated about nine billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. It had one of the tallest chimneys in the world at 305 metres (1,001 ft), which was built in 1977 and was removed December 3, 2020, in a controlled demolition. [1] Along with the Chimney of the Harllee Branch Power Plant, it is the tallest chimney to be demolished in the United States.
| Widows Creek Fossil Plant | |
|---|---|
Widows Creek Fossil Plant | |
 | |
| Country | United States |
| Location | Jackson County, near Stevenson, Alabama |
| Coordinates | 34°53′03″N 85°45′18″W |
| Status | Being decommissioned |
| Commission date | Unit 1: July, 1952 Unit 2: October, 1952 Unit 3: November, 1952 Unit 4: January, 1953 Unit 5: June, 1954 Unit 6: July, 1954 Unit 7: February, 1961 Unit 8: February, 1965 |
| Decommission date | Unit 7: September, 2015 |
| Owner | Tennessee Valley Authority |
| Thermal power station | |
| Primary fuel | Bituminous coal |
| Cooling source | Tennessee River |
| Power generation | |
| Units decommissioned | 8 |
| Nameplate capacity | 1,600 MW |
| Annual net output | 9,000 GWh |
| External links | |
| Commons | Related media on Commons |
History
Initially, six identical 140-MWe units were built between 1952 and 1954. Two more units (575 and 550 MWe name-plate capacity) were added in 1961 and 1965.[2][3]
The last load of coal was delivered to the plant on September 18, 2015, with only one of its eight generation units working. The coal was enough to power Unit 7 until September 23, 2015.[4][5]
Accidents and incidents
EPA compliance agreement
On April 14, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a settlement with the Tennessee Valley Authority to resolve alleged Clean Air Act violations at 11 of its coal-fired plants in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee.[7] Under the terms of the agreement, the entire Widows Creek plant was affected:[8]
- Units 1–6 were retired in stages of two units per year, beginning by July 31, 2013 and ending by July 31, 2015
- Units 7 & 8 were to be fitted with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) devices to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx)
- In December, 2020, the towering smokestack at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant, standing at a height of 1,001 feet, was brought down in a controlled demolition using explosives. This operation, completed in a mere 90 seconds, effectively removed the largest remaining structure at the 8-unit coal-fired power plant situated along the Tennessee River.
Future
On June 24, 2015, Google, a multinational technology company, announced it would invest $600 million to install a data center on land made available by the retirement of Units 1-6. A renewable power capacity equivalent to the data center's needs will be added somewhere on the TVA system, so the data center will run on renewable energy.[9] The project broke ground in April 2018.[10]
