The Allen Combined Cycle Plant is a 1.1-gigawatt (1,100 MW)

natural gas power plant A gas-fired power plant, sometimes referred to as gas-fired power station, natural gas power plant, or methane gas power plant, is a thermal power station that burns natural gas to generate electricity. Gas-fired power plants generate almost a ...

located south of

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

that began generating electricity in 2018. It is operated by

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

(TVA).

Background

TVA announced plans that the

Allen Fossil Plant The Allen Fossil Plant was a 741-megawatt ( MW), coal power plant located south of Memphis, Tennessee. It generated electricity from 1959 to 2018. At the time of its closure, the plant was operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). History Memp ...

would be replaced with a $975 million natural gas plant in order to reduce emissions by 2018 set by a 2011 agreement with the

Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency may refer to the following government organizations: * Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland), Australia * Environmental Protection Agency (Ghana) * Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland) * Environmenta ...

(EPA). The TVA had plans to utilize

greywater Greywater (or grey water, sullage, also spelled gray water in the United States) refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e., all streams except for the wastewater fro ...

from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant, but was determined to be unviable and expensive. Instead, the TVA drilled

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

s on the Memphis Sand Aquifer to use for the plant's cooling source. During subsequent testing of groundwater and alluvial aquifer in the vicinity of the combined cycle plant, TVA discovered that water contained

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

and

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

which raised concerns that use of the on-site wells may lead to cross-contamination of the Memphis Sand aquifer. As a result, the use of wells on site was suspended and all water for the plant was supplied from the MLGW system. As MLGW could not supply sufficient steady-state water flow to operate the combined cycle plant at full capacity in summer, TVA constructed four water storage tanks with 10 million gallon total capacity. The Allen Combined Cycle Plant went into commercial operations on April 30, 2018. In addition to the natural gas plant, there is a 1 MW

solar farm A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...

on site. The facility is also expected to burn biogas produced by the nearby Maxson wastewater treatment and biogas plant.

References

External links

Allen Combined Cycle Plant
{{Tennessee Valley Authority Facilities Energy infrastructure completed in 2018 Tennessee Valley Authority Buildings and structures in Memphis, Tennessee Natural gas-fired power stations in Tennessee

Background

See also

References

External links