Monticello Steam Electric Station
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The Monticello Steam Electric Station was a 1.8-gigawatt (1,880 MW)
coal-fired 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
Mount Pleasant, Texas Mount Pleasant is the county seat of and largest city in Titus County, Texas, Titus County, in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, Mount Pleasant's population was 16,047; it is situated in Northeast Texas. ...
in Titus County,
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. It operated from 1974 to 2018.


History

Monticello had three units. Unit 1 began operations in 1974, Unit 2 became operational in 1975, and Unit 3, became operational in 1978. Originally, the plant produced electricity by burning
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 nearby mines in Texas. Later the plant received rail shipments of coal solely from
Peabody Energy Peabody Energy is a coal mining and energy company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody ...
's
Rawhide Mine The Rawhide Mine is a coal mine located 10 miles (16.1 km) north of Gillette, Wyoming in the United States in the coal-rich Powder River Basin. The mine is an open pit mine that utilizes a combination of cast blast/dozer push and truck/sho ...
in the
Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very s ...
of Wyoming. The plant was cooled by Lake Monticello, which also offers fishing and recreational facilities. The plant was owned by Luminant, a division of Energy Future Holdings.Luminant (2010)
"Monticello Power Plant and Mines."
/ref> It was operated by Vistra Energy. Selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) systems were retrofitted by Fluor to Monticello's units in 2008. This retrofit complimented the LO-NOx burners already installed at Monticello 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 ...
() emissions. In November 2011, Luminant announced that, rather than retrofitting, they would permanently idle Units 1 and 2 to comply with the
United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it ...
's (EPA) Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. With two units of the plant being idled, Luminant halted lignite extraction at nearby Sulphur Springs and Mount Pleasant Mines. It later restarted the units in March 2014 due increased demand for power generation from the 2014 North American cold wave. Luminant made the decision in 2014 that Monticello would rely on coal solely from the Powder River Basin beginning in 2016.


Closure

Vistra announced in October 2017 that all three units will cease power generation in January 2018 due to advancements in renewable energy and a glut of natural gas depressing wholesale power prices. 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) permitted the closure of Monticello at a hearing in November 2017. The closure was scheduled for January 4, 2018.


See also

*
List of power stations in Texas This is a list of electricity-generating power stations in the U.S. state of Texas, sorted by type and name. In 2019, Texas had a total summer capacity of 125,117 MW through all of its power plants, and a net generation of 483,201 GWh. ...


References

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External links


Luminant page for Monticello Power Plant
Energy infrastructure completed in 1974 Energy infrastructure completed in 1975 Energy infrastructure completed in 1978 Buildings and structures in Titus County, Texas Former coal-fired power stations in Texas 1974 establishments in Texas 2018 disestablishments in Texas Vistra Corp