Perry K. Generating Station is a small multi-fired power station producing steam for one of the largest central district steam heating systems in the United States. The plant is located on the south side of downtown
Indianapolis, at the intersection of Kentucky Avenue and West Street. Its
coal-fired
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
units were among the oldest operating power plants in the United States at the time, and were converted to natural gas in 2016.
Perry K. is owned by Citizens Thermal, a division of Citizens Energy Group.
History
In 1892–1893, the Indianapolis Light and Power Company, a predecessor of the
Indianapolis Power and Light Company (IPL), constructed a generating plant on Kentucky Avenue near the intersection with West Street. The $300,000 plant, originally known as the "Kentucky Avenue Plant", had a capacity of 1,120
kilowatts
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James W ...
. Its output was initially used for street and commercial lighting, but in 1905 the plant was modified to provide steam for the
district heating
District heating (also known as heat networks or teleheating) is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location through a system of insulated pipes for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating a ...
of a number of downtown businesses.
A plant expansion in 1937 included the installation of 650
psig
The pound per square inch or, more accurately, pound-force per square inch (symbol: lbf/in2; abbreviation: psi) is a unit of pressure or of stress based on avoirdupois units. It is the pressure resulting from a force of one pound-force applied to ...
boilers and the use of pulverized coal. That same year the Kentucky Avenue plant and the nearby West plant at 744 West Washington Avenue were renamed as Sections K and W, respectively, of the Charles C. Perry Plant.
In 2000, IPL sold the district heating system and the Perry K plant to Citizens Gas and Coke Utility (later renamed as Citizens Energy Group).
See also
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List of power stations in Indiana
This is a list of electricity-generating power stations in the U.S. state of Indiana, sorted by type and name. In 2019, Indiana had a total summer capacity of 26,665 MW through all of its power plants, and a net generation of 102,505 GWh. The c ...
References
External links
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{{Generating Stations in Indiana
Energy infrastructure completed in 1925
Energy infrastructure completed in 1938
Buildings and structures in Indianapolis
Towers in Indiana
Coal-fired power stations in Indiana
1925 establishments in Indiana
District heating in the United States