North Valmy Generating Station is a coal-fired power station located near

Valmy, Nevada Valmy is a census-designated place in Humboldt County, Nevada, United States, named after the Battle of Valmy in France. The Lone Tree gold-mining complex is located adjacent to I-80; mining ended there in 2007, though a small gold resource rema ...

. The plant is jointly owned by

NV Energy NV Energy is a public utility which generates, transmits and distributes electric service in northern and southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Valley, and provides natural gas service in the Reno – Sparks metropolitan area of northern Neva ...

and

Idaho Power Idaho Power Company (IPC) is a regulated electrical power utility. Its business involves the purchase, sale, generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho. It is a subsidiary of IDACORP, Inc. The ...

. Coal is delivered to the location by the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

and originates in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

and

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

Description

The North Valmy Generating Station is a coal-fueled, steam-electric generating plant with two operating units. This station can be seen from Interstate 80 near Golconda, NV. When It is run at high capacity it burns through over one hundred rail cars of coal per day.

History

Construction was begun in 1979 by

Sierra Pacific Resources NV Energy is a public utility which generates, transmits and distributes electric service in northern and southern Nevada, including the Las Vegas Valley, and provides natural gas service in the Reno – Sparks metropolitan area of northern Nev ...

on the plant. The first unit went on line in 1981 and is rated at with a Babcock & Wilcox Boiler and Westinghouse turbine/generator. The second unit followed in 1985 and is rated at with a Foster Wheeler Boiler and General Electric turbine/generator. By 2012, it was anticipated that unit 1 will be taken out of service in 2022 and unit 2 by 2025. The owners plan 600 MW solar with 480 MW storage as partial substitutes, the plan for which was approved in January 2022. The two hybrid solar projects are expected to be completed in 2024.

Notes

{{coor, 40, 52, 50, N, 117, 9, 8, W, display=title Energy infrastructure completed in 1981 Energy infrastructure completed in 1985 Buildings and structures in Humboldt County, Nevada Coal-fired power stations in Nevada Idaho Power