Mill Creek Coal Unit in Kentucky Remains Offline for Repairs

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 355-megawatt (MW) Unit 1 at Mill Creek Power Station, which is located in Louisville, Kentucky, and owned by Louisville Gas & Electric Company (LG&E) (Louisville), has extended an outage that began two months ago.

Plant officials said that they have analyzed the issue and are making repairs; however, they continue to investigate the cause. Plant officials said that they anticipate the unit will be out of service another two weeks, after cracks were detected in the turbine's low-pressure rotor. Officials said that they are addressing another issue related to the generator forging, as well as another rotor problem.

At this time, plant officials project the unit will be back in service May 31, if there are no additional delays.

The unit shut down in mid-March for a planned major turbine overhaul, maintenance and inspection outage, which normally would take to five to seven weeks, depending on the full scope of work. The plant has four operational units, which total 1,715 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity. Units 2 to 4 are to remain in service.

LG&E is a regulated electric and natural gas utility that serves Louisville and 16 surrounding counties.

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