Largest Pennsylvania Coal-Fired Plant Will Convert to Natural Gas

A major Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant, the largest coal-burning facility in the state before it was closed in 2023, may be converted to a natural gas-fired station. Officials in Homer City on Dec. 3 announced plans to restart the Homer City Generating Station and increase its generating capacity through burning natural gas. A redevelopment group also said the use of hydrogen, and installation of solar power, could be possible in the future.

Robin Gorman, vice president of Homer City Redevelopment LLC, discussed the plan during meetings with local residents in Indiana County on Tuesday. Gorman said converting the closed coal plant to burn natural gas also could provide other future revenue streams for the facility. She said the plant’s generation capacity could potentially be doubled, which would make it the largest natural gas-fired power plant in the U.S., topping the 3,777-MW West County Energy Center in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Natural gas-fired power plants generate more than half of Pennsylvania’s electricity, with more than three dozen operating gas-fired stations, according to state data. Pennsylvania is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the U.S., behind only Texas.

State officials have said all remaining coal-fired units in Pennsylvania are scheduled to be shut down, or converted to burn natural gas, by 2028.

The Homer City Generating Station was a 2-GW coal-fired plant with three units, the first two of which entered operation in 1969. The third unit came online in 1977. The plant, located just outside Homer City about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, was taken offline for decommissioning in the summer of 2023. It was known both for being a major polluter and for its smokestacks, with the Unit 3 stack at 1,217 feet tall considered the tallest in the U.S.

The plant in recent years was dogged by changes in ownership, two bankruptcies, a default on a debt payment and a lawsuit against its coal supplier. The plant also was sued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with the complaint saying the facility was in violation of the Clean Air Act.

The plant was acquired by private equity in 2017 after then-owner Homer City Generation LP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The plant, operated by NRG, had previously been owned by General Electric, and before that by Edison International.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said the Homer City plant had a utilization rate, or capacity factor, of about 90% during its first 30 years of operation. The capacity factor had a marked decline over the next two decades, falling to about 20% in 2022, according to the EIA. The agency said as new natural gas-fired power plants were built in Pennsylvania to take advantage of market conditions, the Homer City plant was dispatched most often for load following, rather than to supply baseload power.

—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.