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Oak Grove Power Plant is a 1.79-gigawatt (1,796 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 north of
Franklin Franklin may refer to: People and characters * Franklin (given name), including list of people and characters with the name * Franklin (surname), including list of people and characters with the name * Franklin (class), a member of a historic ...
,
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 ...
in Robertson County, Texas. The plant is operated by Vistra Energy. It began operations in 2010.


History

Plans for Oak Grove began in the 1970s as Texas Power & Light (a forerunner of Luminant) and
Alcoa Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for "Aluminum Company of America") is an American industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary alu ...
made an agreement to jointly operate a power plant named Twin Oak Steam Electric Station in Robertson County. The plan was to construct two, 750 MW units to burn
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 ...
and be ready for commercial generation by 1981. The electricity generated would run to Alcoa's
aluminium smelting Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery. This is an electroly ...
facility in
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
, Texas. Twin Oaks Reservoir was developed by impounding Duck Creek in 1982 to act as a cooling source for the plant. In 1983, Alcoa attempted to sell its stake in Twin Oak to
Halliburton Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation and the world's second-largest oil service company which is responsible for most of the world's fracking operations. It employs approximately 55,000 people through its hundreds of su ...
who was seeking electricity to offer to the owners of the troubled
South Texas Nuclear Generating Station The South Texas Project Electric Generating Station (also known as STP, STPEGS, South Texas Project), is a nuclear power station southwest of Bay City, Texas, United States. STP occupies a site west of the Colorado River about southwest of Houst ...
. Ultimately, Alcoa sold its stake back to Texas Utilities in 1984. As electricity demand in Texas stagnated, construction on Twin Oak continued to be deferred until the air permit was withdrawn in 1994. The plant was renamed from Twin Oak to Oak Grove when construction restarted in 2007 by Luminant. Construction resumed in order to meet future electricity demand and following the
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is the environmental agency for the state of Texas. The commission's headquarters are located at 12100 Park 35 Circle in Austin. The fourth-largest environmental agency in the United States ...
(TCEQ) granting Luminant a new air permit for Oak Grove. The plant was reconfigured and redesigned to meet current emissions requirements. This included the addition of
selective catalytic reduction Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) means converting nitrogen oxides, also referred to as with the aid of a catalyst into diatomic nitrogen (), and water (). A reductant, typically anhydrous ammonia (), aqueous ammonia (), or a urea () soluti ...
(SCR) systems 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 (), o ...
() emissions and
activated carbon Activated carbon, also called activated charcoal, is a form of carbon commonly used to filter contaminants from water and air, among many other uses. It is processed (activated) to have small, low-volume pores that greatly increase the surface ar ...
which prevents mercury from being released. After Fluor completed the necessary construction work, Unit 1 came online in December 2009 and Unit 2 came online in June 2010. Oak Grove utilizes lignite extracted from the nearby Kosse Mine.


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 2022, Texas had a total summer capacity of 148,900 MW through all of its power plants, and a net generation of 525,562 GWh ...
*
List of largest power stations in the United States This article lists the largest List of power stations in the United States, electricity generating stations in the United States in terms of installed Nameplate capacity, electrical capacity. Non-renewable resource, Non-renewable power stations ar ...


References

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External links


Luminant page for Oak Grove Power Plant
Energy infrastructure completed in 2009 Energy infrastructure completed in 2010 Coal-fired power stations in Texas Buildings and structures in Robertson County, Texas Vistra Corp