In operation since the turn of the year, officials with the Tennessee Valley Authority spent Wednesday morning celebrating the successful construction and activation of three combustion turbines at Muhlenberg County’s Paradise facility in Drakesboro.
A sister site to the coal-fired plant nearby, the project took more than two years to complete and required more than 1,000,000 man hours, but reportedly came in under budget and ahead of schedule.
Roger Waldrep, TVA’s vice president of special projects, said the natural gas units — capable of creating 750 megawatts — could provide enough power for up to 400,000 businesses and homes in the seven-state service area.
He noted it was fully stressed tested this past holiday season, as Winter Storm Heather waylaid the East Coast during the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with the system’s parts coming from key locations in the U.S.
Don Moul, TVA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, urged that as the nation’s demand to work, live and grow in Kentucky increases, so, too, does the need for power.
This addition to Paradise, he added, answers the three “E’s” of TVA’s mission: energy, environmental stewardship and economic development. It’s one of the most recent additions to the TVA portfolio, with nearly 3,500 other energy implements either under construction or just completed across the electric giant’s grid.
Allen Clare, TVA’s senior vice president of operations, referenced U.S. President Harry S. Truman’s visit to Kentucky Dam in Gilbertsville all those years ago — where he called Kentucky Lake the “daddy of all man-made lakes in the southeast,” and its unveiling attracting more than 15,000 visitors on opening day.
Today, more than 4,400 megawatts are generated by west Kentucky facilities alone — including the new 100 megawatt “Project Phoenix” solar farm construction at Shawnee in Paducah — and Clare added that projects like this in Drakesboro “will keep the lights on when the sun isn’t shining.”
Justin Maierhofer, TVA’s regional vice president of the north, confirmed that TVA now serves 15 local power companies, five electric co-ops and 10 municipalities for electricity to more than 210,000 households in the Commonwealth alone.
And that 17 Kentucky industrial organizations annually require nearly 4 billion kilowatt hours.
In the stead of Governor Andy Beshear, Senior Advisor Rocky Adkins said these kinds of developments only furthered the state’s economic prosperity — proven by the Commonwealth’s two-year track record of private and public investments.
Himself a former coal official, point guard of Morehead State men’s basketball and nearly four-decade veteran of state legislature, he also noted construction like this requires a team effort — and a non-partisan look-forward attitude at renewable resources.
Brian Williams, TVA’s senior vice president for construction, closed by saying it had long been accepted fact that Paradise was the most complicated plant to operate in the system — but skilled craftsmen and their efforts have always led to strong output and apt problem solving in demanding times.
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