Widows Creek Fossil Plant


Widows Creek Fossil Plant was a 1.6-gigawatt coal power plant, east of Stevenson, Alabama, USA. The plant, operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, generated about nine billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. It has one of the tallest chimneys in the world at, which was built in 1977.

History

Initially, six identical 140-MWe units were built between 1952 and 1954. Two more units were added in 1961 and 1965.
The last load of coal was delivered to the plant on September 18, 2015, with only one of its eight generation units working. The coal was enough to power Unit 7 until September 23, 2015.

Accidents and incidents

On January 9, 2009, the plant experienced a dam break on a gypsum slurry pond, and spilled up to of waste into the creek of the same name on the property, inundating it with an ashlike substance.

EPA compliance agreement

On April 14, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement with the Tennessee Valley Authority to resolve alleged Clean Air Act violations at 11 of its coal-fired plants in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Under the terms of the agreement, the entire Widows Creek plant will be affected:
On June 24, 2015, Google announced it would invest $600 million to install a data center on land made available by the retirement of Units 1-6. A renewable power capacity equivalent to the data center's needs will be added somewhere on the TVA system, so the data center will run on renewable energy. The project broke ground in April 2018.