Monroe Power Plant

Monroe Power Plant
Detroit Edison's Monroe Power Plant
Location of Monroe Power Plant in Michigan
Country	United States
Location	Monroe, Michigan
Coordinates	41°53′21″N 83°20′44″W / 41.88917°N 83.34556°W / 41.88917; -83.34556Coordinates: 41°53′21″N 83°20′44″W / 41.88917°N 83.34556°W / 41.88917; -83.34556
Status	Active
Owner(s)	Detroit Edison
Power station information
Primary fuel	Coal
Power generation information
Installed capacity	3,293 megawatts

The Monroe Power Plant is a coal-fired power plant located in Monroe, Michigan on the western shore of Lake Erie. It is owned by the Detroit Edison Company, a subsidiary of DTE Energy. The plant was constructed in the early 1970s and was completed in 1974. The plant has 4 generating units, each with an output of 850 megawatts. With all four generating units operating, the plants total output is 3,300 megawatts, the eleventh largest electric plant in the United States. It is the second largest coal fired plant in the United States after Georgia Power's Plant Bowen near Cartersville, Georgia ^[1]

The Monroe Power Plant did significant upgrades and maintenance at the facility in late 2007 and 2008. FGD's, or sulfur-oxide "scrubbers", are in the process of being added to all of Monroe's generating units. These devices significantly reduce emitted sulfur dioxide (SO₂), and will be eventually installed in more of Detroit Edison's coal plants.

The Monroe Power Plant connects to the power grid by numerous 120,000 and 345,000 volt transmission lines, owned and maintained by International Transmission Company (ITC). Two of the 345kv lines going out of the plant interconnect with First Energy in Ohio (Bayshore-Monroe line and the Majestic-Monroe-Allen Junction Line).

In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill.^{[citation needed]} The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.^{[citation needed]} Monroe Power Plant ranked number 5 on the list, with 4,110,859 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/plantsbycapacity.htm