Problematic Coal-Fired Units in Pennsylvania

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Pennsylvania is home to the greatest number of coal-fired power plants in the Northeast region of the U.S. The state is home to 72 operational coal-fired power units with a capacity exceeding 20,000 megawatts (MW).

Click on the image at right to view a chart showing the distribution of coal-fired power units and capacities by state for the Northeast Market Region.

Pennsylvania has many problematic power stations that have seen several outages in the past few weeks. One station in particular is the Homer City Generating Station in Pennsylvania owned by Edison International (NYSE:EIX) (Rosemead, California), which is located in Homer City, Pennsylvania. Last Friday, two units totaling over 1,300 megawatts were offline and were causing pressure on the PJM interconnection. Unit 02, a 660-megawatt (MW) unit, was offline for condenser leak repairs, while Unit 03, a 692 MW unit, was forced off for electrical issues. Unit 02 returned over the weekend, while Unit 03 had start-up issues. Unit 03 remains offline, but contacts have verified that it should enter start-up sometime late Wednesday. Another outage on Unit 01 consisting of boiler tube repairs occurred over the weekend, but returned to service early Wednesday.

Earlier this year, Unit 03 was offline for approximately 98 days with major electrical issues. The unit first went down in January for leaks that were discovered on the electrical side of the unit near the generator. While this unit was down, plant officials decided to replace the transformer simultaneously performing maintenance on the low pressure (LP) turbine.

Many concerns were present about the return of Unit 03 due to the prolonged outage that was experienced this year, but this unit should return shortly. Workers at the plant have stated that they have isolated the issue and plan to promptly return the unit as soon as they can.

Edison International, through its subsidiaries, is an electric power generator and distributor, and an investor in infrastructure and renewable energy projects. The company operates in regulated and non-regulated markets with a power generation portfolio of approximately 14,000 megawatts. Headquartered in Rosemead, California, Edison International is the parent company of a regulated electric utility and other subsidiaries engaged in non-utility businesses with combined assets totaling about $33.5 billion as of March 31, 2005.

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Outage Report – 53215 53240

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