Setting a high bar for clean coal technology.

Sitting on more than 2,200 acres – including a 114-acre wildlife preserve – along the Ohio River is Trimble County Generating Station, one of the most environmentally and technologically advanced coal-fired generating plants in the United States.

The plant consists of a pulverized-coal-fired unit (TC1) with a net rated capacity of 514 megawatts, a pulverized-coal-fired unit (TC2) with a net rated capacity of 760 megawatts, and five natural gas-fired, simple cycle combustion turbines — each with a nominal rating of 160 megawatts.

Serving as the Owner's Engineer, our team has provided essential support over the years at TC2 for both new plant design and modifications of existing facility systems to help LG&E stay at the forefront of the industry.

With no rail delivery service to the site, the plant’s two barge unloading systems supply limestone — FGD reactant — and coal to the plant via separate conveyor systems. Coal and limestone are received in 1,500-ton barges and carried nearly a half-mile from the Ohio River to the plant. A six-mile-long natural gas pipeline transports more than two billion cubic feet of natural gas while other raw materials, parts and equipment are brought in by truck.

We recently helped integrate its fuel handling system from fuel delivery to disposal. Providing instrumentation and controls engineering design, we successfully revised system controls to allow TC2 to fire a blend of Powder River Basin and high sulfur coal while allowing TC1 to retain the ability to fire high sulfur coal only. The project also converted the distributed control system to an Emerson Ovation control system.

With a variety of environmental control equipment installed, TC2 is regarded as the cleanest and most efficient coal-fired unit in Kentucky and one of the cleanest, most efficient in the United States. All evident by the fact that the project received a $125 million tax credit from the U.S. Department of Energy for its use of advanced clean coal technology.