Kyger Creek Power Plant


Kyger Creek Power Plant is a 1.08-gigawatt, 1,086 coal-fired power station located south of Cheshire, Ohio in Gallia County, Ohio. It is operated by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation.

History

The Kyger Creek was launched into service in 1955. The plant with its five units supplied electricity for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio along with its sister plant, Clifty Creek Power Plant in Madison, Indiana. The Kyger Creek is located downstream along the Ohio River from a much larger, newer coal-fired Gavin Power Plant. In July 2019, the State of Ohio signed into law a bill mandating FirstEnergy customers to subsidize Kyger Creek and Clifty Creek. American Electric Power, Duke Energy, and Dayton Power & Light customers already subsidize these plants based on power usage.

Environmental mitigation

When Kyger Creek was first constructed, three smokestacks were constructed to disperse emissions; mitigating the nearby area from soot and foul gases. With amendments added to the Clean Air Act in 1970, regulators pressed Kyger Creek in modernizing their outdated smokestacks. A smokestack, one of the tallest chimneys in the world was built in the mid-1970s. Pollution control systems were installed at Kyger Creek in 2001 to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%. The implementation of two jet bubbling reactor flue-gas desulfurization systems in 2011 reduced 98% of sulfur dioxide emissions at Kyger Creek.