Jeffrey Energy Center is a sub-bituminous coal-fired power plant located in Emmett Township, Pottawatomie County, seven miles northwest of St. Marys, Kansas. Jeffrey EC is jointly owned by Westar Energy and Aquila Corp., both now wholely owned sibsidiaries of Evergy, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri. Jeffrey EC is composed of three separate 800-MW units providing a name-plate energy center capacity of 2.16 gigawatts. Unit 1 began operation in 1978, unit 2 in 1980 and unit 3 in 1983. Jeffrey EC is a typical modern coal-fired energy center. Its primary mission is to convert the chemical energy available from its WyomingPowder River Basin sub-bituminous coal supply into electric energy.
History
Jeffrey EC came into operation during the late 1970s in the wake of an energy crisis created by a quadrupling of world oil prices. Its inauguration in July, 1978 was heralded with a visit by Vice PresidentWalter Mondale praising its use of domestic coal reserves at a time when many power stations were still using imported oil. The opening ceremonies included a performance by the US Army Golden Knights parachute team, and the arrival of a special train carrying company officials and state dignitaries from Topeka, Kansas. The center was originally designed for four generating units, but was scaled back when the anticipated growth in demand for electricity did not materialize. The steam turbines and generators were imported from Germany. The unit 2 intermediate pressure turbine had to be replaced by the unit 3 turbine when the original unit was lost on a ship that sunk during the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. As of December, 2007, Foundation Coal has shipped approximately 220,000,000 tons of Powder River Basin Coal to Jeffrey Energy Center.
Operation
Coal is delivered to Jeffrey EC by a unit train. A unit train contains about 110 cars, constructed of aluminum to conserve weight, and is approximately long. Jeffrey EC burns the coal delivered by about of coal train cars each week. The heating value of this coal is about 8,400 BTU/lb and at full load Jeffrey EC burns about of coal per hour. Jeffrey EC has the capacity to generate 1,857 MW of electrical power. Jeffrey EC is not located close to any large bodies of natural water. Its water supply comes from the Kansas River and two nearby wells. The overall efficiency of the conversion process is about 33%, or about 1/3 of the coal's available chemical energy is converted to electric energy. The remainder of the energy is rejected to the environment as low-grade waste heat with poor thermodynamic availability. Steam generating energy centers, like Jeffrey, operate their steam plant on the Rankine cycle. According to Moyers and Companyweb site as of September 18, 2013 this is ranked 12th of the 50 dirtiest American power plants and generated 14.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2011.
