E.W. Brown Generating Station

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E.W. Brown Generating Station is an operating power station of at least 1445-megawatts (MW) in Burgin, Mercer, Kentucky, United States with multiple units, some of which are not currently operating.

Location

Table 1: Project-level location details

Plant name	Location	Coordinates (WGS 84)
E.W. Brown Generating Station	Burgin, Mercer, Kentucky, United States	37.788331, -84.713531 (exact)

The map below shows the exact location of the power station.

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Unit-level coordinates (WGS 84):

• 10, 11, 12, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3: 37.788331, -84.713531

Project Details

Table 2: Unit-level details

Unit name	Status	Fuel(s)	Capacity (MW)	Technology	CHP	Start year	Retired year
10	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas, fossil liquids: fuel oil	126	gas turbine	no	1995	–
11	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas, fossil liquids: fuel oil	126	gas turbine	no	1996	–
12	Cancelled	fossil gas: natural gas	621	combined cycle	not found	–	–
5	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas	123	gas turbine	no	2001	–
6	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas	177	gas turbine	no	1999	–
7	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas	177	gas turbine	no	1999	–
8	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas, fossil liquids: fuel oil	126	gas turbine	no	1995	–
9	Operating	fossil gas: natural gas, fossil liquids: fuel oil	126	gas turbine	no	1994	–
Unit 1	Retired	coal: bituminous	113.6	subcritical	–	1957	2019
Unit 2	Retired	coal: bituminous	179.5	subcritical	–	1963	2019
Unit 3	Operating	coal: bituminous	464	subcritical	–	1971	2035 (planned)

CHP is an abbreviation for Combined Heat and Power. It is a technology that produces electricity and thermal energy at high efficiencies. Coal units track this information in the Captive Use section when known.

Table 3: Unit-level ownership and operator details

Unit name	Owner	Parent
10	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
11	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
12	Louisville Gas & Electric Co; Kentucky Utilities Co	PPL Corp
5	Louisville Gas & Electric Co [53%]; Kentucky Utilities Co [47%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
6	Kentucky Utilities Co [62%]; Louisville Gas & Electric Co [38%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
7	Kentucky Utilities Co [62%]; Louisville Gas & Electric Co [38%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
8	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
9	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
Unit 1	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
Unit 2	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]
Unit 3	Kentucky Utilities Co [100%]	PPL Corp [100.0%]

Unit Retirements

As of 2017, Units 1-2 were slated to retire in February 2019, while Unit 3 (464 MW) would continue operating. Units 1 and 2 retired in February 2019 as expected.

As of 2021, Unit 3 was expected to retire by 2028.

In July 2023, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LGE/KU) requested approval from the utilities regulator to close four coal units, including E.W. Brown Unit 3, Ghent Generating Station Unit 2, and Mill Creek Station Units 1 and 2. LGE/KU proposed retiring these units between 2024 and 2027, replacing them and other aging generating systems with fossil gas combined cycle units, solar and battery storage facilities, as well as solar power purchase agreements. In November 2023, the Kentucky Public Service Commission denied LG&E/KU's request to retire coal Unit 3 at E.W. Brown.

According to reporting from October 2024, LG&E/KU’s latest Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) indicated that coal Unit 3 was slated for retirement in 2035.

Gas-Fired Units

The E.W. Brown Generating Complex also has 7 gas-fired units with a total capacity of 981 MW and a 10 MW solar system. In December 2022, Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities companies announced that they plan to retire nearly a third of the capacity of their aging generation fleet by 2028 and build two gas plants, including one 621 MW combined-cycle unit (Unit 12) at the E.W. Brown Generating Station. As of June 2023, the company was seeking approval from the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC), which was expected to be received by October 2023. In November 2023, PSC denied LG&E/KU’s request to build the gas-fired Unit 12 at the E.W. Brown Generating Station. Relatedly, the commission denied the utility’s request to retire the coal-fired Unit 3. The commission found that the retirement of the Unit 3 was premature given the timing of overhaul costs and uncertainty surrounding environmental compliance.

Kentucky Utilities Company Clean Air Act Settlement

On February 3, 2009 the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. EPA announced that Kentucky Utilities Company (KU) agreed to pay a $1.4 million civil penalty and spend approximately $135 million on pollution controls. The settlement is a result of alleged New Source Review requirements of the Clean Air Act violations.

In March 2007, the EPA filed a complaint that KU modified its largest coal-fired generating unit at their E.W. Brown Generating Station without installing required pollution controls. The EPA noted that the "unit has been operating since 1971, and the modifications made in 1997 allowed the unit to increase the amount of coal it burned and increase the amount and rate of emissions for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter. The government discovered the violations through an information request submitted to KU."

In the settlement KU agreed to install new pollution control equipment on the E.W. Brown Generating Station that will effectively reduce combined emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) by more than 31,000 tons per year. Particulate matter emissions will also be reduced through new pollution controls by approximately 1,000 tons per year. An additional $3 million will be spent on projects to mitigate passed alleged emissions violations.

KU will be installing three scrubbers to reduce SO2 pollution, a contributor to acid rain, at three of its coal-fired units by 2020.

2022 winter blackouts

In January 2023, the CEO of Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LGE/KU) blamed blackouts on December 23, 2022, on a frozen gas pipeline. The blackouts affected 35,000 customers and the utility shed 317 MW in load to stabilize the system. The CEO’s comments were cited by Republican legislators the following month before they adopted Senate Bill 4, which made it harder for utilities to retire coal and other fossil fuel power plants. In August 2023, however, the Kentucky Public Service Commission held a hearing in which LGE/KU revealed that 800 MW of coal capacity was offline during the outage. At E.W. Brown Generating Station, 62 MW of coal-fired capacity was offline due to instrumentation problems that the utility claimed were not weather-related. Also offline were 639 MW at Trimble County power station and 121 MW at Mill Creek Station.

Emissions Data

• 2006 CO₂ Emissions: 3,978,892 tons
• 2006 SO₂ Emissions: 45,191 tons
• 2006 SO₂ Emissions per MWh:
• 2006 NO_x Emissions: 6,683 tons
• 2005 Mercury Emissions: 161 lb.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the E.W. Brown Generating Station

In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma-related episodes and asthma-related emergency room visits, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, peneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution is formed from a combination of soot, acid droplets, and heavy metals formed from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and soot. Among those particles, the most dangerous are the smallest (smaller than 2.5 microns), which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities.

The table below estimates the death and illness attributable to the E.W. Brown Generating Station. Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the E.W. Brown Generating Station

Type of Impact	Annual Incidence	Valuation
Deaths	68	$500,000
Heart attacks	100	$11,000,000
Asthma attacks	1,100	$57,000
Hospital admissions	50	$1,200,000
Chronic bronchitis	41	$18,000,000
Asthma ER visits	61	$23,000

Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011

E.W. Brown ranked 50th on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste

In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill. The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.

E.W. Brown Generating Station ranked number 50 on the list, with 637,230 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

"High Hazard" Surface Impoundments

Two of E.W. Brown's coal ash surface impoundments are on the EPA's official June 2009 list of Coal Combustion Residue (CCR) Surface Impoundments with High Hazard Potential Ratings. The rating applies to sites at which a dam failure would most likely cause loss of human life, but does not assess of the likelihood of such an event.

Citizen groups

• Coal River Mountain Watch
• Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
• Kentucky Environmental Foundation
• Kentucky Riverkeeper
• New Power
• Kentucky Environmental Foundation, Berea, KY, phone: (859) 986-7565
• Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including interactive maps of the power stations, downloadable datasets, and summary data, please visit the Global Coal Plant Tracker and the Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.