Big Brown Power Plant was a 1.15-gigawatt (1,150 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 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating a gigawatt each. They generate ...

located northeast of Fairfield near Fairfield Lake State Park in Freestone County,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. It was operated by

Vistra Corp Vistra Corp. is a Fortune 500 integrated retail electricity and power generation company based in Irving, Texas. The company is the largest competitive power generator in the U.S. with a capacity of approximately 39GW powered by a diverse portfol ...

's subsidiary, Luminant. The plant operated from 1971 to 2018.

History

Big Brown was constructed by Texas Utilities (now known as Luminant) and went into operation in 1971. It has two units. Big Brown Creek was impounded to form the plant's cooling source. The dam was completed in 1969 creating Fairfield Lake. The power plant used

lignite Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), 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 ...

from the nearby Turlington Mine and later supplemented with coal from

Peabody Energy Peabody Energy is a coal mining 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 also marke ...

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/shov ...

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 ...

of Wyoming. To improve the overall fuel mix and to reduce reliance on the nearby Turlington Mine whose lignite production was decreasing, coal from the Powder River Basin was blended into the fuel beginning in 2000.

LO-NOx burner A LO burner is a type of burner that is typically used in utility boilers to produce steam and electricity. Background The first discovery Around 1986 John Joyce (of Bowin Cars fame), an influential Australian inventor, first learned about o ...

s were installed in both boilers in 2001 to curtail

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 (), o ...

() emissions. emissions were reduced again in 2008 with selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) systems being retrofitted by Fluor to Big Brown's units. The plant was temporarily idled in 2011 in order to overhaul its boilers. This was to fulfill the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

's (EPA)

Cross-State Air Pollution Rule The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) is a rule by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that requires member states of the United States to reduce power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollutio ...

to reduce its

sulfur dioxide Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless gas with a pungent smell that is responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is r ...

() emissions. With the plant idling, Luminant halted lignite extraction at the nearby Turlington Mine until the plant resumed electricity generation. Claiming lignite reserves were nearly exhausted at Turlington Mine, Luminant made plans in 2014 to close the mine by 2018 and rely solely on coal from the

Closure

It was announced on October 13, 2017 that Luminant was to either shut down or sell to another concern Big Brown in early-2018 due to economic factors such as low natural gas prices and growth in renewable energy. The following month,

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 st ...

(ERCOT) approved of the shut down. ERCOT found the two-unit Big Brown plant was "not required to support ERCOT transmission system reliability", and authorized its closure by February 12, 2018.

References

External links

Luminant page for Big Brown Power Plant
{Dead link, date=October 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Energy infrastructure completed in 1971 Energy infrastructure completed in 1972 Buildings and structures in Freestone County, Texas Former coal-fired power stations in Texas Vistra Corp

History

Closure

See also

References

External links