The Gould Street Generating Station was a former 100 MW electric generating plant operated by

Exelon Exelon Corporation is an American Fortune 100 energy company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and incorporated in Pennsylvania. It generates revenues of approximately $33.5 billion and employs approximately 33,400 people. Exelon is the larges ...

that was located on Gould Street in south

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, USA. The plant was adjacent to an elevated section of freeway

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

and was south of the Riverside neighborhood and west of the Locust Point neighborhood of Baltimore. The plant site, located on the shore of the Middle Branch of the

Patapsco River The Patapsco River mainstem is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 river in central Maryland that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal port ...

, was used for the generation of electric power for over one hundred years before being shut down on June 1, 2019. The site was purchased by Greenspring Realty Partners, Inc. for $3.1 million in December 2019. Demolition began in October 2020. The original brick buildings, the large storage tanks behind them, and other minor structures on the southwest portion of the property were demolished as of March 2021, but as of April 2022 the larger steel building to the northeast on the property remains. A large portion of the property was acquired by Weller Development in July 2021 and the future of the remaining structure and the property is not known.

Plant description

Electric output from the Gould Street Generating Station was provided by Unit 3, which consists of a

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

-fired boiler and steam turbine. Water from the Patapsco River was used as the heat sink of the condensor for the steam turbine. The plant also had a 250 kW emergency generator intended to be used during

power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricit ...

s to provide back-up power to start Unit 3.

History

The plant site was first used to generate electricity in 1905, when the Baltimore Electric Power Company installed three 2 MW, 60 cycle, 6,600 volt generators driven by steam turbines. The electricity was then converted to direct current by motor-generator sets at an

electrical substation A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station and ...

on Sharp Street, where it was sold to customers at prices below that being offered by its competitor in the city, the Consolidated Gas Electric Light and Power Company (a predecessor company of Constellation Energy). The resulting

price war A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...

resulted in destructive competition, with electricity being sold at prices lower than its cost of production. The situation was solved in 1907 by the acquisition of the assets of the Baltimore Electric Company under a 999-year

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

by Consolidated Gas. The turbines and generators at the plant, not being necessary to serve the electric load at that time, were then sold and shipped to a silver mining company in Mexico. Two replacement steam-powered 35 MW generators numbered as Units 1 and 2 were installed in a new building at the site in 1927. A boiler which burned

pulverized coal Coal dust is a fine powdered form of which is created by the crushing, grinding, or pulverizing of coal. Because of the brittle nature of coal, coal dust can be created during mining, transportation, or by mechanically handling coal. It is a form o ...

provided 450 psi steam for the turbines that was

superheated A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into superheated steam or dry steam. Superheated steam is used in steam turbines for electricity generation, steam engines, and in processes such as steam reforming. There are ...

to . These two generators operated until they were decommissioned in 1977. The 100 MW generator of Unit 3, installed in 1952, was originally powered by a turbine with steam provided from a coal-fired boiler, but was later converted from coal to burn No. 6

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...

and natural gas. This unit was shut down in 2003 due to an equipment failure involving the steam turbine. Constellation Energy repaired the turbine, modified Unit 3 to burn natural gas only, and reactivated the plant in June 2008. Constellation merged into Exelon in 2012. Exelon shuttered and sold the plant in 2019.

Operations

Before the plant was closed, Exelon operated it as a

peaking power plant Peaking power plants, also known as peaker plants, and occasionally just "peakers", are power plants that generally run only when there is a high demand, known as peak demand, for electricity. Because they supply power only occasionally, the power ...

with a

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is de ...

of up to 10%. As the mid-Maryland region is a summer peaking load, the majority of the plant's operating time was during hot summer days. The Gould Street Generating Station was dispatched by the

PJM Interconnection PJM Interconnection LLC (PJM) is a regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States. It is part of the Eastern Interconnection grid operating an electric transmission system serving all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentu ...

regional transmission organization A regional transmission organization (RTO) in the United States is an electric power transmission system operator (TSO) that coordinates, controls, and monitors a multi-state electric grid. The transfer of electricity between states is considered i ...

References

External links

Exelon – Gould Street Generating Station

Gould Street Power Plant Photo Gallery
DEAD LINK found May 7, 2015 {{Coord, 39, 15, 59, N, 76, 36, 14.5, W, region:US-MD_type:landmark, display=title Energy infrastructure completed in 1905 Energy infrastructure completed in 1927 Energy infrastructure completed in 1952 Buildings and structures in Baltimore Natural gas-fired power stations in Maryland Exelon 1905 establishments in Maryland

Plant description

History

Operations

See also

References

External links