WA Parish Generating Station

The W.A. Parish Generating Station is a 3.65-gigawatt (3,653 MW), dual-fired power plant located near Thompsons, Texas. The station occupies a 4,664-acre site near Smithers Lake southwest of Houston in Fort Bend County and consists of two four-unit plants; one natural gas and the other coal (2,697 MW).[1] With a total installed capacity of 3,653 MW, it is the second largest conventional power station in the US, and supplies about fifteen percent of the energy in the Houston area.[2][3] NRG Energy owns and operates the plant.[1]

W.A. Parish Generating Station
W.A. Parish, seen from northwest of the facility
CountryUnited States
LocationThompsons, Texas
Coordinates29°28′34″N 95°38′0″W
StatusOperational
Owner(s)NRG Energy
Thermal power station
Primary fuelCoal
Secondary fuelNatural gas
Cooling sourceSmithers Lake
Power generation
Nameplate capacity3,653 MW
External links
CommonsRelated media on Commons

The Powder River Basin supplies three 115-car trainloads worth of low-sulfur coal to units 5-8 or 36,000 tons daily.[4][5]

Completed in January 2017, the post-combustion[6] Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project became largest installed on an existing power plant in the world.[7][8] The system pumped 1.6 million tons of filtered carbon dioxide (CO2) from unit 8 to the West Ranch Oil Field 82 miles away in Jackson County.[9][10] Since the system is powered by natural gas, it was originally expected to have a net effect of not releasing 785,000 tons of carbon annually.[11] The system cost approximately $1 billion,[12] but was idled from May 2020 to September 2023 due to the low price of oil during the COVID-19 pandemic.[13][14]

Adjacent to Parish Station is the natural gas Brazos Valley Power Plant owned by Calpine Energy which opened in 2003.[15]

Notable Incidents

During the 2021 Texas power crisis, Parish Station was reported to have experienced up to a 664 MW loss in generation capacity, including an 80 MW decrease in capacity early in the crisis that contributed to the need for rolling blackouts.[16]

The Unit 8 turbine, which has a generating capacity of 610 MW, caught fire the night of May 8, 2022. While there were no injuries reported during the fire,[17] a chemical exposure incident during the repairs briefly hospitalized six workers.[18] The turbine was heavily damaged and remained offline as of August 2023.[19] Unit 8 was originally expected to be repaired by May 7, 2023.[20]

See also

References
  1. "Texas Sets Record for Gas Power Burn, Still Barely Enough". Power Magazine. August 18, 2015.
  2. "S&P Global : Platts : W.A. Parish Electric Generation Station, Thompson, Texas". Online.platts.com. Archived from the original on October 14, 2016. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  3. "Coal unit catches fire at NRG's W.A. Parish Generating Station in Fort Bend County". ABC13 Houston. May 9, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  4. "CenterPoint execs field questions about Sugar Land's Parish plant". Bizjournals.com. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  5. "How the Biggest Power Plant in Texas Will Use Pollution to Pump Oil | StateImpact Texas". Stateimpact.npr.org. February 21, 2012. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  6. "Carbon Capture Suffers a Huge Setback as Kemper Plant Suspends Work". June 29, 2017. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
  7. "World's Largest Carbon-Capture Plant to Open Soon". Scientific American. October 4, 2016. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  8. "Petra Nova Project| NRG Energy". Nrg.com. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  9. Kirk, Bryan (September 2, 2014). "Parish Power Plant takes steps to clean up its operations in Fort Bend Count". Chron.com. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  10. "Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies @ MIT". Sequestration.mit.edu. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  11. Wang, Ucilia (July 15, 2014). "NRG's $1B Bet To Show How Carbon Capture Could Be Feasible For Coal Power Plants". Forbes.
  12. Ryan Maye Handy (January 10, 2017). "NRG begins commercial operations of $1 billion carbon capture system". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved December 21, 2017.
  13. "Problems plagued U.S. CO2 capture project before shutdown: document". Reuters. August 6, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  14. Patel, Sonal (September 13, 2023). "Petra Nova, Pioneering Power Plant Carbon Capture Unit, Is Up and Running Again, says JX Nippon". POWER Magazine. Retrieved September 27, 2023.
  15. Seshadri Kumar (April 5, 2004). "Brazos Valley power plant turns on lights". Chron.com. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  16. Patel, Sonal (March 4, 2021). "ERCOT Lists Generators Forced Offline During Texas Extreme Cold Event". POWER Magazine. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  17. STAFF, HERALD. "Investigators seek answers to NRG energy plant blaze". Fort Bend Herald. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  18. Zuvanich, Adam (September 30, 2022). "Chemical exposure at Houston-area power plant sends six workers to hospital – Houston Public Media". www.houstonpublicmedia.org. Retrieved September 27, 2023.
  19. Gardner, Timothy (August 2, 2023). "Restart delayed at Texas coal unit linked to Petra Nova CCS project". Reuters. Retrieved September 27, 2023.
  20. Mathews, Chris (August 4, 2022). "NRG: Fire at Fort Bend County power plant could keep coal unit offline until Q2 2023". Houston Business Journal. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
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