Posted By: MDM
Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/18/15 02:05 PM
Saw this morning that SWEPCO, the Lake Welsh power plant owner, announced retirement of Unit 2 in 2016. This is most likely due to the high cost of emissions clean up compliance under tightening EPA regulations. Cleaning up the dirty burning lignite is just too expensive when compared to the cost of power generated with natural gas, wind and solar generating facilities, plus their emissions are significantly lower allowing the utility company to meet emissions standards.
Enjoy the warm water this winter as it appears it may soon follow the pattern of Monticello if Lake Welsh Unit 2 makes up a large part of the warm water disharge.
Posted By: forkduc
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/18/15 05:33 PM
Did the new scrubbing tower not take care of the emission issue? I was out 2 weeks ago and 3 stacks were running.
Posted By: David Burton
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/18/15 06:18 PM
I don't think we get consistent and accurate details from these notices or Press Reports. Monticello was supposed to have retired all but one of their units... ERCOT doesn't have all the details either, but I think they still show three for each in the capacity charts. I would love to see real-time specific generation details rather than aggregated data, but I doubt we'll get that.
Posted By: machinist
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/19/15 01:13 AM
David, due to 9/11 and Homeland Security generation info is not available to the public. I retired
from the plant here in Graham in 2006 and I still work for Luminant as a contractor during Turb/Gen
repairs and if I couldn't see the plant from my front door I wouldn't know if they were running. In
fact the people at the plant don't know until Dispatch calls them or emails them the 24 hour plan.
So for instance if they were going to run tomorrow they wouldn't know it until today.
Johnny
Posted By: Txmedic033
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/19/15 02:39 PM
So what machinist is saying is just call him if you want to know if it is running.
Posted By: coachallentca
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/19/15 02:58 PM
they still will run two stacks...From what I have heard they have been running 2 for a while.
Posted By: Fishing the Bend
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/20/15 12:50 AM
The plant will only be running 2 stacks after February.
Posted By: David Burton
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/20/15 03:45 AM
three on welsh and one on monti today.
Posted By: Flooringit
Re: Lake Welsh may be cooler in 2016 with Unit 2 shutdown - 12/20/15 01:59 PM
Are local swepco power plant hasn't ran at all this winter yet. No clue what's going on was suppose to be back on last month.