"Plant Nameplate Capacity: 538.0 MW (Megawatts); Units and In-Service Dates: Unit 1: 66.0 MW (1969), Unit 2: 236.0 MW (1978), Unit 3: 236.0 MW (1980)" [gem]
A replacement 640mw natural gas combined-cycle power plant should come online in 2023. "The 640 MW power island will comprise a Mitsubishi Power M501JAC Advanced Class Gas Turbine, a steam turbine, and a Vogt three pressure reheat heat recovery steam generator in a 1 x 1 multi-shaft configuration. The JAC gas turbine will deliver industry-leading reliability and world class efficiency that will reduce carbon emissions by 65 percent versus legacy coal-fired plants." [Casey]
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| Brett Campbell posted Charles R. Lowman Power Plant, retired August 2020. Slated for demo in the coming months, but the Lowman Energy Center natural gas combined cycle plant being built on the site of the old coal pile is nearing completion. Should be up and running Spring 2023. Formerly 3 GE units totaling around 600MW, soon to be a 1x1 Mitsubishi power island around 700MW. Dennis DeBruler: Gordon McFarland Do you remember the year of the startup? Brett Campbell: Dennis DeBruler I believe Unit 1 was 1969, 2 and 3 were around 1978. [IndustryNet also disagrees with the gem source above in that Unit 3 also came online in 1978.] |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on Brett's post I'm saving a satellite image while it is still showing the coal pile. https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4... [The lift bridge in the upper-right corner is NS/Southern.] |
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| Kurt Schroeck posted Alabama Electric, Tombigbee Station. Leroy, Alabama 1979 [Some comments confirm that Tombigbee Station became Lowman Energy Plant.] |
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| Kurt Schroeck posted Alabama Electric - Lowman Sean Bachman: Man that GE turbine looks really familiar. We’ve got one 250 MW. [Some comments indicate that a combined cycle plant is supposed to come online in 2023.] |
The plant was closed because of regulations concerning coal ash. "PowerSouth plans to close and cover its ash holding ponds." [bizjournals]
Covering stops the leaching of mercury and other toxins because they first dewater the ponds. Then they grade the stabilized wastes to remove unstable slopes and provide a grade for storm water runoff. And then the cover starts with a 12" layer of clay that has a very low permeability of below "1x10-5 cm/sec" and a 60-mil plastic liner. Then the cover adds layers designed to drain storm water away from the low-permeability layers and to grow grass. The land use will be restricted to short rooted grasses. And groundwater monitoring wells will continue to be inspected. [lowmanccr] In other words, they don't let water touch the mercury and toxins that are left behind.
I wondered if the coal-fired plant closed because of the EPA 2025 deadline concerning mercury contamination. I think the second paragraph below means "yes."
Still, Lowman continued as a valuable resource even as AEC (renamed PowerSouth in 2008) added other generation resources and diversified its generation portfolio. Lowman was the only PowerSouth plant that ran reliably through the 2014 Polar Vortex. Over the past 20 years, it provided cost stability as natural gas prices rose and fell.
Lowman was closed because legally managing water and coal ash under the Coal Combustion Residual (CCR) Rules promulgated by the EPA became impossible. The Lowman name and legacy will continue to live on with a new, large natural gas combined cycle plant that is being constructed on the site.
[PowerSouth]
Two photos of a 2007 air quality control upgrade project that used 2500 tons of hot-dip galvanized steel rather than periodic painting. [galvanizeit] I wonder if closing the plant just 13 years later caused this investment to be a stranded asset.
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I presume this is the construction of the natural gas power plant that is supposed to go online in 2023.
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| Itsnot What,itseems, Apr 2022 |
"The Lowman Energy Center will comprise an M501JAC class gas turbine, a steam turbine, and three heat recovery steam generators (HRSG).The Lowman Energy Center will comprise an M501JAC class gas turbine, a steam turbine, and three heat recovery steam generators (HRSG). While the gas turbine is designed to reduce carbon emissions by 65%, the power plant will make use of robust water cooling and air quality standards. The combined-cycle facility will also be equipped with a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system for NOx emissions control, and an oxygen catalyst to mitigate volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions. The associated equipment includes an air inlet chamber, boiler feedwater pumps, control equipment, continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS), pumps, conditioning equipment, cooling tower, and a 180ft-tall metal stack, apart from the electrical equipment including step-up and auxiliary transformers." [NSenergyBusiness]
The natural gas usage by the electric company is already at 77.2%. Currently, their use of renewables other than hydropower is 0.3%. They plan to add nuclear and solar to offset their reduction of coal. But the solar project is just 80mw. [southaec] I wonder why they don't plan to use wind.
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