J. Robert Welsh Power Plant is a 1-gigawatt (1,056 MW),

coal power plant A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a th ...

located east of

Pittsburg, Texas Pittsburg is a city and the county seat of Camp County, Texas, United States. Best known as the former home of the giant poultry producer Pilgrim's and the home of racing legend Carroll Shelby, Pittsburg is also the birthplace of Cavender's Boot ...

Titus County, Texas Titus County is a county located in the northeastern region of the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 31,247. Its county seat is Mount Pleasant. The county is named for Andrew Jackson Titus, an early settler. Titus ...

. It is operated by SWEPCO, a subsidiary of AEP. The plant is named after J. Robert Welsh, a former President and Board Chairman of SWEPCO.

History

Welsh Power Plant had three units constructed: Unit 1 began operations in 1977, Unit 2 began operations in 1980, and Unit 3 began operations in 1982. All three units were installed with boilers from

Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...

and turbines from Westinghouse. Combined, the three units had an operating capacity of 1,674 MW. In 2012, AEP announced they were reducing output at Unit 2 to coincide with the commencement of commercial operations at

John W. Turk Jr. Coal Plant The John W. Turk Jr. Coal Plant is a base load 600-megawatt coal-fired power station in Fulton, Arkansas, operated by the American Electric Power subsidiary Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO). It provides power to customers in Arkansas, ...

in Arkansas. Unit 2 was officially decommissioned in April 2016 as a part of a major retrofitting project to comply with the

Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

's (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for Units 1 and 3. It is currently scheduled to stop burning coal in 2028. The remaining two units use

sub-bituminous coal Sub-bituminous coal is a lower grade of coal that contains 35–45% carbon. The properties of this type are between those of lignite, the lowest grade of coal, and those of bituminous coal, the second-highest grade of coal. Sub-bituminous coal i ...

mined from the

Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very s ...

shipped via rail. Close to it, there is Welsh HVDC Converter Station, a back-to-back HVDC station.

References

Energy infrastructure completed in 1977 Energy infrastructure completed in 1980 Energy infrastructure completed in 1982 Buildings and structures in Titus County, Texas Coal-fired power stations in Texas 1977 establishments in Texas {{US-powerstation-stub

History

See also

References