Pleasants Power Station is a 1.3-gigawatt (1,300 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 near Belmont,

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

in Pleasants County, West Virginia. The plant is owned by Energy Harbor and began operations in 1979. The power plant was the site of the

Willow Island disaster The Willow Island disaster was the collapse of a cooling tower under construction at the Pleasants Power Station at Willow Island, West Virginia, on April 27, 1978. 51 construction workers were killed. It is thought to be the deadliest constr ...

in 1978.

History

In what is considered to be the deadliest construction accident in

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

history,

Cooling Tower A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat and ...

#2 collapsed on April 27, 1978 as it was still under construction. 51 workers were killed in the accident. Pleasants was completed in 1980 at a cost of $677 million. There are two cooling towers, each high, and two -high chimneys. In 2008,

Allegheny Energy Allegheny Energy was an electric utility headquartered in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. It owned and operated electric generation facilities and delivered electric services to customers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia. Allegh ...

completed a $105 million project which saw the installation of

flue-gas desulfurization Flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) is a set of technologies used to remove sulfur dioxide () from exhaust flue gases of fossil-fuel power plants, and from the emissions of other sulfur oxide emitting processes such as waste incineration. Methods ...

(FGD) technology which reduced

sulfur dioxide Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic activ ...

() emissions at Pleasants. FirstEnergy would assume ownership of Pleasants following its merger with Allegheny Energy in 2011. In December 2016, FirstEnergy announced they were putting Pleasants up for sale. FirstEnergy had plans to sell Pleasants to its subsidiaries, Potomac Edison and Monongahela Power for $195 million. The sale would help meet its subsidiaries projected shortfalls of electricity demand. Although the

West Virginia Public Service Commission The Public Service Commission of West Virginia is the Public Utilities Commission of the State of West Virginia, U.S.A. Operation Chairman Charlotte Lane, Renee Larrick, and Bill Raney are the three commissioners. These positions are political a ...

gave a conditional approval of the sale in January 2018, it was rejected by the

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the United States federal agency that regulates the transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and natural gas in interstate commerce and regulates the transportation of oil by pipeline in ...

(FERC) as the sale did not meet public interest. The sale of Pleasants was cancelled the following month. This decision forced FirstEnergy to consider either selling or closing Pleasants by the end of 2018. Ownership was then transferred to FirstEnergy Solutions in September 2018 with closure delayed to June 1, 2022. To stave off a potential closure, a bill passed by the

West Virginia Legislature The West Virginia Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of West Virginia. A bicameral legislative body, the legislature is split between the upper Senate and the lower House of Delegates. It was established under Article VI o ...

and signed into law by Governor

Jim Justice James Conley Justice II (born April 27, 1951) is an American businessman and politician who has served as the 36th governor of West Virginia since 2017. Justice had a net worth of $1.2 billion in September 2018, making him the wealthiest person ...

would give FirstEnergy Solutions $12.5 million in annual tax breaks. FirstEnergy's generating division Energy Harbor (previously called FirstEnergy Solutions) announced in March 2022 that it would close both units by June 2023.

References

External links

Willow Island, West Virginia on HistoricMonroe.org
{{Supertall chimneys Energy infrastructure completed in 1979 Energy infrastructure completed in 1980 FirstEnergy Coal-fired power stations in West Virginia Buildings and structures in Pleasants County, West Virginia