Chalk Point Generating Station


The Chalk Point Generating Station is a 2,647-MWe electricity-generating plant owned by NRG Energy, located near the tiny incorporated town of Eagle Harbor, Maryland, United States, on the Patuxent River.

Individual Units

The facility consists of several units:
The site also contains six combustion turbines owned and operated by Mirant.
The combined name-plate capacity of all seven combustion turbines is 601 MWe.

History

The Chalk Point plant began service in 1964. All of the GenOn generating units at the Chalk Point Generating Station were built by the Potomac Electric Power Company, which sold them to the Southern Company in December 2000 as a result of the restructuring of the electricity generating industry in Maryland. The station was included in the Mirant spin-off from the Southern Company in April 2001. Mirant was merged into GenOn Energy in 2010, and GenOn merged into NRG in 2012.

Fuel delivery

Coal is delivered to the Chalk Point generating station by CSX Transportation trains via the Herbert Subdivision, a former Pennsylvania Railroad line. This line is accessed via the Amtrak Northeast Corridor line, with coal being delivered from trains staged at the CSX Benning Yard in Anacostia, Washington, DC. These trains are brought from the coal fields via the CSX Metropolitan Subdivision and Cumberland Subdivision down the Potomac River valley from Cumberland, Maryland.

Dispatch of electricity

The electrical output of Chalk Point Generating Station is dispatched by the PJM Interconnection regional transmission organization.

Environment

Chalk Point plant is by far the leading polluter in Prince George's County, Maryland, according to pollution research site Scorecard.org. It produced of air pollution and of water pollution in 2002.
In August 2018, the Maryland Department of the Environment required three generating stations, including Chalk Point, to meet current federal wastewater standards by November 2020. The plants are discharging arsenic and mercury to their respective receiving waters according to 1980s-era standards under expired permits. Upgrading the plants' treatment systems to Maryland's current standards "could reduce discharges of toxic metals by 97 percent." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published the updated federal standards in 2015.