Longview Power Plant

Longview Power Plant is a coal-fired power plant located near Maidsville, West Virginia. The plant's single unit generates 700 net megawatts of electricity from run-of-mine coal and natural gas.^[1][2]

The Longview plant is officially a "zero discharge" power plant in WV because all sewage, stack blow-down and other liquid waste is piped to Pennsylvania, where it is discharged into the abandoned Shannopin Mine, and that water is given minimal treatment and discharged into Dunkard Creek ^[3]

The Longview Power plant includes a new air pollution control system that results in emissions that are among the lowest in the nation for coal plants.^[4] In addition, Longview emits less carbon dioxide than most other coal plants because of its fuel efficiency.^[5]

The Longview Power plant is fully integrated with its fuel source, utilizing "run-of-mine" coal, and thus avoiding the added cost and environmental impacts of fuel preparation. Mepco, an affiliated fuel supplier, transports coal from its underground mine to Longview by a 4.5 mile conveyor that minimizes transportation costs and avoids the local impacts of trucking coal. In order to access its coal reserves, Mepco must pump polluted mine pool water out of the abandoned Shannopin Mine and Consol Energy's Humphrey mine. The company originally announced that the polluted water would be used as cooling water at the Longview Plant but later abandoned that idea because it was too polluted. Instead, the company provides minimal treatment of the water at its Steele Shaft treatment plant and discharges the water into Dunkard Creek. This water is very high in total dissolved solids and was found by the Pennsylvania DNR to be impairing the aquatic community in Dunkard Creek ^[6]

The Longview Power project cost approximately $2.2 billion.^[7] After the plant began operation in 2011, construction defects and major changes in the power markets lead to the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013. Longview attributed its need for bankruptcy “in large part because [Longview Power] has been plagued by design, construction, and equipment defects and failures …” ^[8] In early 2015 the company reached a comprehensive settlement of all construction claims, and two of its major contractors agreed to remediate plant defects at their own expense.^[9] As a result, Longview Power emerged from bankruptcy in April 2015 with the full remediation of the plant underway and new ownership led by private equity firms KKR, Centerbridge, Ascribe, and Third Avenue.^[10]

SNL Financial reported April 21, 2016, on Longview’s 155 days of continuous operation during which it exceeded its operational metrics, with steady environmental performance and at an affordable cost. Longview also used some of its fuel flexibility and took advantage of historically low natural gas prices and co-fired natural gas for up to 20% of unit heat input without any additional investment. Longview said its carbon dioxide emissions are about 15% below its peers and that it met its permit limitations despite having some of the most stringent in the nation. Longview was recently visited by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. Manchin stated the plant was an example of a cleaner future for coal-fired power.^[2] Ernest Moniz, United States Secretary of Energy, also visited the plant.^[11]

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