Buck Steam Station

Buck Steam Station
Location of Buck Steam Station in North Carolina
Country United States of America
Location Salisbury Township, Rowan County, near Salisbury, North Carolina
Coordinates 35°42′43″N 80°22′37″W / 35.71194°N 80.37694°W / 35.71194; -80.37694Coordinates: 35°42′43″N 80°22′37″W / 35.71194°N 80.37694°W / 35.71194; -80.37694
Commission date 1926
Owner(s) Duke Energy
Thermal power station
Primary fuel Coal,
Natural Gas
Type Steam,
gas turbine
Combined cycle? Planned
Cooling source Yadkin River
Power generation
Units operational 4
Units planned 2
Nameplate capacity 369 MW,
620 MW planned

The Buck Steam Station is a 369-MW formerly coal-fired electrical power plant, owned by Duke Energy. There are also three natural gas-fueled combustion turbines at the location that provide an additional 93 MW (and which began operation in 1970), and two natural gas-fueled combined cycle turbines are planned for the near future.[1] Remaining coal-fired units (IDs 5-9) were decommissioned in mid-2011 and April 2013, with only natural gas units (11C and 12C) remaining.

History

The Buck Steam Station was built in 1926. It is named after a co-founder of Duke Energy, James Buchanan "Buck" Duke. The plant was originally three units, but a fourth was added when the company bought up an order cancelled by the Pentagon.[1]

Dukeville, North Carolina was built as a mill village along the banks of the Yadkin River in 1926 to house plant employees of the Buck Steam Station.[2] In 2014, Dukeville residents were told that "coal ash pits near their homes could be leaching dangerous materials into groundwater."[3]

Addition of combined cycle turbines

In 2007, Duke Energy began to pursue permission to add two new combined cycle, natural gas-fired, 620 MW generating units to its fleet: one at the Dan River Steam Station in Rockingham County, the other at the Buck Steam Station. This was done in order to diversify the company's fuel sources, expand its generating capacity, and to modernize its energy generation by moving away from less efficient, more polluting coal. When the two turbines are added, two of the four older coal units will go offline.[4]

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, November 26, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.