Northwestern Pennsylvania is one of the hotbeds of natural gas made cheap because of fracking. So this power plant closed because it couldn't compete with natural gas power plants.
It was the largest power plant in Pennsylvania when it closed in July 2023. [eia]
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| Jackson-Township historical preservation posted Photo from a Penelec publication showing the Homer City Generating Station located in Center Township near Homer City, Indiana County. Until its construction in the 1960s by the Pennsylvania Electric Co. (PenElec) and others, much of the property was owned by the George Family. In 1969, Units #1 and #2 began operation, while Unit #3 began operating in 1977. The site covered about 2,400 acres that also included the 1,800 acre Two Lick Reservoir, a water conservation facility which was operated by the station. On April 3, 2023 Homer City Generation announced a decision to shut down the power plant and be offline by June 2, 2023. (Photo from Joshua Shearman) Joseph Henigin: To start up an idle unit, Oil is needed to get the unit up to operating temperature. The coal has been cleaned to remove the sulfur. And is wet prior to being burned. People believe that there's smoke rolling out of those stakes when actually it's steam from the wet coal. When all the units are up and running, it provided electricity to lower parts of New York and parts of New Jersey. The cost of starting a unit up is why the plant has closed. Eventually we'll be back operating coal plants as natural gas prices continue to rise. Phil Jadlowiec posted Greg Shirey: Units 1 & 2. Picture was taken before Unit 3 was built. Paul Yankulic: Pa is gonna miss some Homer City, Hatfield Ferry, Bruce Mansfield and Cheswick when the new capacity payments hit everyone's bill. Adam Karpa: I’ve had so many good times there, shame it’s gone, 800 million into scrubbers and they shut it down 9 years later. That place was mismanaged and falling apart for YEARS. Regular 10-12 week shut downs became 3 weeks bandaid repairs and it just got worse and worse. Taking old parts from one unit and putting them on the other, using rtv to fix expansion joints and duct work holes. Place was owned by slumlords who extracted every cent of profit and mothballed if |
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| Jackson-Township historical preservation posted Site of the future Homer City Generating Station located in Center Township near Homer City, Indiana County on November 11, 1966. Until its construction in the 1960s by the Pennsylvania Electric Co. (PenElec) and others, much of the property was owned by the George Family. In 1969, Units #1 and #2 began operation, while Unit #3 began operating in 1977. The site covered about 2,400 acres that also included the 1,800 acre Two Lick Reservoir, a water conservation facility which was operated by the station. On April 3, 2023 Homer City Generation announced a decision to shut down the power plant and be offline by June 2, 2023. (Photo from Joshua Shearman) |
Power plant
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| Street View, Oct 2023 |
The smokestacks are the "tallest in America." A private equity firm has owned it since 2017. Their only interest was milking money from the plant, so they cut payroll and quit maintaining the plant. They provided just a 90-day notice to the employees and community that they were pulling the plug on the plant. [CapitalAndMain]
Coal mine? I have not been able to find confirmation that this plant had its own coal mine. Since this is in Pennsylvania, it makes sense that it had a mine.
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| Street View, Oct 2023 |
I think this is a coal mine because I could not find a railroad and because this is a lot of equipment for coal handling.
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| Satellite |
It is one thing to destroy a small power plant, but not mothballing a large, efficient plant could be a serious mistake. I wonder where it was on pollution controls. The EPA's latest ruling that caused a lot of closures was the requirement to properly deal with mercury and other toxins in the ash waste pools before 2025.
Joseph Yeater posted eight photos with the comment: "It’s hard to watch these videos of the demolition of Homer City. I spent 9 months working there in 2013 on the new pollution controls. It’s insane the amount of money that was invested into these old coal stations just to be demolished a short time later. Here are some photos from Homer City in 2013 when it was full of promise to run well into the future."
Dan Boyle: There will be a natural gas power plant right there in the near future. This area of the country is sitting on the largest natural gas reserve in the world !
Bill Buhl: They are supposed to put a 6 unit, twin cycle gas plant in its place from what I've heard.
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| Zack Russo commented on Joseph's post March 10th, 2013 |
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| safe_image for Schedule set for demolition of Homer City power plant towers, Apr 7, 2023, Kristina Serafini/Triblive It was scheduled to be blown up on Mar 22, 2025. Dan Boyle: I heard that a natural gas power plant will be taking its place. Any truth to this ? News guy said largest in the world. |
Ron Franko posted two photos with the comment: "Homer city power plant."
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Brad Jones posted four photos with the comment: "The Homer City Power Plant stacks, early morning, never to be seen again..."
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| Luke Shrift commented on Brad's post That’s what it’s supposed to look like! 😔 Jacob Andrew: Luke Shrift Yep. All three making power. 👍🏻 |
Note that the tall stack broke in two and the base remained up.
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| Dana Rukse posted Some footage of the Homer City demolition this morning. I missed the cooling towers coming down. We hung around for a bit after the stacks and thought maybe they weren't going to do them them since the one stack failed to come all the way down. |
Dave Fillman posted six photos with the comment: "Photographs from on top of the Homer City Power Plant chimney. Before its failed implosion attempt yesterday it was the tallest chimney in America, and third tallest in the world, standing over 1200 feet tall."
Dave Fillman shared
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I skipped three more videos of the implosion, but since this one is marked official, I'll note it. I'm glad I skipped the amatur videos because this one includes several views in timelapse in addition to drone shots in real time. I think the fourth one fell in an unintended direction.Falling in the wrong place just speeds up demolition of the other stuff.
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| 7:36 video @ 1:35 [It looks like they built up some sort of blast barriers on the left side of the towers.] Homer City Generating Station is a decommissioned 2-GW coal-burning power station near Homer City, in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, USA. It is owned by hedge funds and private equity firms and is operated by NRG Energy.[1] Units 1 and 2, rated at 660 MWe, began operation in 1969. Unit 3, rated at 692 MWe nameplate capacity, was launched in 1977.[2] It employed about 124 people. During the 2010s, it underwent two bankruptcies within five years.[1] On April 3, 2023, Homer City Generation announced a decision to shut down the power plant and be offline by June 2, 2023.[4] Demolition of the site included destruction of the chimneys on March 23rd, 2025. The station is located in Center Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, occupying approximately 2,400 acres (9.7 km2). The site also includes the 1,800-acre (7.3 km2) Two Lick Reservoir, a water conservation facility which is operated by the station.[3] Cooling Towers of the Homer City Generating Station From there, the Black Lick enters the Conemaugh River, which goes on to meet the Loyalhanna River, creating the Kiskiminetas River, before entering the Allegheny River.[3] |
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