WA_Parish_Generating_Station
WA Parish Generating Station
Fossil Power Plant
The W.A. Parish Generating Station is a 3.65-gigawatt (3,653 MW), dual-fired power plant located near Thompsons, Texas. The station occupies a 4,664-acre site near Smithers Lake southwest of Houston in Fort Bend County and consists of two four-unit plants; one natural gas and the other coal (2,697 MW).[1] With a total installed capacity of 3,653 MW, it is the second largest conventional power station in the US, and supplies about fifteen percent of the energy in the Houston area.[2][3] NRG Energy owns and operates the plant.[1]
The Powder River Basin supplies three 115-car trainloads worth of low-sulfur coal to units 5-8 or 36,000 tons daily.[4][5]
Completed in January 2017, the post-combustion[6] Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project became largest installed on an existing power plant in the world.[7][8] The system pumped 1.6 million tons of filtered carbon dioxide (CO2) from unit 8 to the West Ranch Oil Field 82 miles away in Jackson County.[9][10] Since the system is powered by natural gas, it was originally expected to have a net effect of not releasing 785,000 tons of carbon annually.[11] The system cost approximately $1 billion,[12] but was idled from May 2020 to September 2023 due to the low price of oil during the COVID-19 pandemic.[13][14]
Adjacent to Parish Station is the natural gas Brazos Valley Power Plant owned by Calpine Energy which opened in 2003.[15]