Monroe Power Plant
| Monroe Power Plant | |
|---|---|
 DTE Electric Company's Monroe Power Plant | |
  | |
| Country | United States |
| Location | Monroe, Michigan |
| Coordinates | 41°53′21″N 83°20′44″W / 41.88917°N 83.34556°WCoordinates: 41°53′21″N 83°20′44″W / 41.88917°N 83.34556°W |
| Status | Active |
| Commission date | 1971 |
| Owner(s) | DTE Energy Electric Company |
| Power station | |
| Primary fuel | Coal |
| Generation units | 4 |
| Power generation | |
| Installed capacity | 3,400 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 DTE Energy Electric 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 (3,400 MW total, 100 MW required for the plant to run), 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 connects to the power grid by numerous 120,000 and 345,000 volt transmission lines, owned and maintained by ITC Transmission. 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).
Flue Gas Desulfurization
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. Currently, two of the generation units are on the new system. These devices reduce over 95% of the sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions.
Selective Catalytic Reduction Systems
SCRs or Selective Catalytic Reduction Systems reduce the amount of NOX by combining NH3 with the NOx over an SCR catalyst to reduce over 80% of the NOx to water and nitrogen. Currently 3 of the 4 generating units use SCRs.
Plant Waste
In January 2009, Sue Sturgis compiled a list of the 100 coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments.[2] Monroe Power Plant ranked number 5 on the list, with 4,110,859 pounds of coal combustion waste in 2006. The data came from the EPA.