Cardinal Power Plant | |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Location | Wells Township, Jefferson County, near Brilliant, Ohio |
Coordinates | 40°15′8″N 80°38′54″W / 40.25222°N 80.64833°W |
Status | Operational |
Commission date | Units 1–2: 1967 Unit 3: 1977 |
Owners | AEP Generation Resources (Unit 1) Buckeye Power (Units 2–3) |
Operator | Buckeye Power |
Thermal power station | |
Primary fuel | Coal |
Cooling source | Ohio River |
Power generation | |
Nameplate capacity | 1,800 MW |
External links | |
Commons | Related media on Commons |
Cardinal Power Plant is a 1.8-gigawatt (1,800 MW) coal power plant located south of Brilliant, Ohio, in Jefferson County, Ohio. The power plant has three units. Cardinal is co-owned with Unit 1 owned by American Electric Power's (AEP) subsidiary, AEP Generation Resources. Units 2–3 are owned by Buckeye Power, a utility cooperative. It began operations in 1967.
Construction of Cardinal started in November 1963. The project was a joint venture of Ohio Power (a forerunner of AEP) and Buckeye Power. Buckeye Power obtained loans from the Rural Electric Administration and financing through Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and the Ohio Company.[1] Cardinal was built adjacent to Ohio Power's Tidd Plant. The plant is named after the State Bird of Ohio, the cardinal.[2] Units 1 and 2 began commercial generation in 1967 at a cost of $131 million.[3] Unit 3 began generation in 1977 after six years of construction at a cost of $220 million.[4][5] In 2017, AEP and Buckeye Power reached an agreement for Buckeye Power to operate all three units at Cardinal.[6]
To further reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, AEP and Buckeye Power announced in 2001 they would install selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems to complement their LO-NOx burners at Cardinal. The SCRs would decrease NOx emissions at the plant from 30% to 90%.[7] Between 2005 and 2010, flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) equipment were installed to all three units at Cardinal with Units 1 and 2 costing $300 million to construct. The FGD equipment would reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 98%.[8] A year after it was installed, inspectors found severe corrosion in its tank vessel. AEP negotiated a settlement with Black & Veatch, the contractor who installed the FGD equipment, to address the corrosion.[9] Instead of constructing a new chimney for Unit 3's FGD system, AEP retrofitted a cooling tower to release waste heat into the atmosphere.[10] AEP announced in 2015 that its Cardinal unit will be converted into a natural gas power plant by 2030 in order to comply with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards.[11] The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved of the conversion.[12]
During construction in June 1965, three workers were killed when a pump casing fell into a well.[13]
An explosion killed one worker and injured four in June 1984.[14]