New plant near Franklin, Texas now online with a combined generation capacity of 1,600 megawatts
The second and final unit at Luminant’s new Oak Grove Power Plant in Robertson County has achieved substantial completion, signaling the turnover of day-to-day operations to Luminant from the general contractor of the unit.
“This significant milestone means the new unit is now fully operational, making additional baseload generation available for our state at an ideal time – as we head into our peak summer season,” said Mike Williams, Luminant’s chief fossil officer. “Combined, Oak Grove Units 1 & 2 are capable of powering nearly 850,000 average Texas homes and we’re proud to welcome the plant to our operational fleet, an achievement due solely to the teamwork and dedication of our employees and construction contractors.”
Both Oak Grove units have lower emission rates than any existing lignite plant in the state and at least 70 percent lower than the national coal plant average. In addition to environmental control equipment that will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, Oak Grove is also the nation’s first pulverized coal plant fueled by lignite to utilize new activated carbon sorbent injection technology to remove mercury. More information about the plant’s environmental controls is available through Luminant’s latest Environmental Review.
Oak Grove Unit 2 is moving into the final on-line testing phase, which when completed, will make the unit fully available for reliability dispatch by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
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About Luminant
Luminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corp., is a competitive power generation business, including mining, wholesale marketing and trading, construction and development operations. Luminant has 18,300 megawatts of generation in Texas, including 2,300 MW fueled by nuclear power and 8,000 MW fueled by coal. The company is also the largest purchaser of wind-generated electricity in Texas and fifth largest in the United States. EFH is a Dallas-based energy holding company that has a portfolio of competitive and regulated energy subsidiaries, primarily in Texas. Visit www.luminant.com or www.energyfutureholdings.com for additional information.
The two-unit Oak Grove Power Plant is located in Robertson County, Texas.