Shawnee Fossil Plant


The Shawnee Fossil Plant is a coal-fired power plant owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, located near Paducah, Kentucky. The closest city is Metropolis, Illinois, across the Ohio River to the northeast.

Operation

Shawnee Fossil Plant contains nine active units, which are drum-type, front wall fired pulverized coal units. The plant generates approximately 8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, enough to supply 540,000 homes.

History

Construction began on the Shawnee Fossil Plant in January 1951. The plant's first unit began operation in April 1953. In October 1956, the last of the ten units began operation. Shawnee is currently the oldest TVA coal-fired power plant still in operation.
Unit 10, which was converted to an atmospheric fluidized-bed boiler in the early 1980s was idled in October 2010 and retired on June 30, 2014. That unit's generator was moved to TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant late that year, where it replaced a generator that had failed. As of 2018 construction is underway at units 1 and 4, where scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction systems are being added to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.

External resources