Sandow Power Plant was a 1.1-gigawatt (1,137 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 southwest of

Rockdale, Texas Rockdale is a city in Milam County, Texas, United States. Its population was 5,323 at the 2020 census. It is about 41 miles west of College Station. History In 1873, the town developed as the International-Great Northern Railroad ...

Milam County Milam County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 24,754. The county seat is Cameron. The county was created in 1834 as a municipality in Mexico and organized as a county in 1837. Milam Coun ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. It was operated by

Luminant Luminant is a Texas-based electric utility. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corporation. Luminant's operations include electricity generation and wholesaling, mining, construction, and development. The company has capac ...

, a subsidiary of Vistra Corp. The plant closed in 2018.

Sandow Power Plant Units 1–3

Sandow was constructed by

Alcoa Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary ...

in 1951 to power its nearby

aluminium smelting Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an List of alumina refineries, alumina refinery. ...

facility. Operations of Sandow's first three units began in 1954 with a nearby reservoir called Alcoa Lake utilized to cool the plant. In the 1980s, Alcoa commenced a

mid-life update A mid-life update, particularly in the context of defence, is maintenance or renovation designed to extend the usefulness and capability of an item. See also * F-16 mid-life update A large number of variants of the General Dynamics F-16 Fighti ...

to Units 1–3 at a cost of $63 million. After its completion, pollution from the plant increased by 13,000 tons annually. A settlement 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 ...

(EPA) was agreed upon in 2003 to remedy the plant for violating the Clear Air Act. Ultimately, Units 1–3 would be decommissioned in 2009.

Sandow Power Plant Units 4–5

The plant had two active units at the time of its closure: Unit 4 began operation in 1981 and Unit 5 began operation in 2009. The power plant used

lignite Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

from the Sandow mine in Rockdale until 2006, when Three Oaks Mine in nearby

Bastrop County, Texas Bastrop County is located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in Central Texas and its county seat is Bastrop. As of the 2020 census, the population was 97,216. Bastrop County is included in the Austin–Round Rock, Texas, metropolitan ...

opened. Unit 4 was retrofitted with a

selective catalytic reduction Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) is a means of converting nitrogen oxides, also referred to as with the aid of a catalyst into diatomic nitrogen (), and water (). A reductant, typically anhydrous ammonia (), aqueous ammonia (), or a urea () s ...

(SCR) system by Fluor in 2008 to reduce

nitrogen oxide Nitrogen oxide may refer to a binary compound of oxygen and nitrogen, or a mixture of such compounds: Charge-neutral *Nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen(II) oxide, or nitrogen monoxide *Nitrogen dioxide (), nitrogen(IV) oxide * Nitrogen trioxide (), or n ...

() emissions. Transmission of electricity to the nearby aluminum smelter stopped in 2008 when Alcoa ceased smelting operations at its Rockdale facility and accused Luminant of power supply issues. It was announced on October 13, 2017 that Luminant would shut down Sandow Power Plant in early-2018 due to economic factors such as low natural gas prices and growth in renewable energy. The

Electric Reliability Council of Texas The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT) is an American organization that operates Texas's electrical grid, the Texas Interconnection, which supplies power to more than 25 million Texas customers and represents 90 percent of the s ...

(ERCOT) approved of the shut down the following month. ERCOT found the plant was "not required to support ERCOT transmission system reliability," and closed by January 11, 2018.

References

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External links

Luminant page for Sandow Power Plant
Energy infrastructure completed in 1954 Energy infrastructure completed in 1981 Energy infrastructure completed in 2009 Buildings and structures in Milam County, Texas Former coal-fired power stations in Texas 1954 establishments in Texas 2018 disestablishments in Texas Vistra Corp