Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen was shut down following an explosion at one of the four coal-fired units.
The units are capable of producing 3,200 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 1.75 million homes a year.
The electricity produced makes up less than 10 percent of the 45,000 megawatts of power produced across Southern Co.’s four-state power system, which includes natural gas, coal and nuclear plants.
Federal environmental officials said they won’t know until Friday whether they will investigate an explosion at Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen, one of the nation’s largest coal-fired power plants.
The explosion Thursday afternoon caused minor injuries and sent coal dust into the air. Early reports indicated there were “no significant releases of air pollution,” but the state’s Environmental Protection Division will investigate further, according to Jac Capp, the EPD’s air protection branch chief.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sent workers to the massive Bartow County power plant Thursday evening but said it was too early to tell what action the agency would take.
Georgia Power workers were preparing to shut down Unit 2 for planned, routine maintenance when the explosion happened. The blast was strong enough to rattle windows miles away.
There were no deaths and only four minor injuries. Three of those workers were treated on site, and another person, a 60-year-old man, was taken to Cartersville Medical Center with a leg injury, but was later released, according to Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft.
The EPA may need to do air-pollution monitoring. That may not be required if the part of the plant that was damaged didn’t directly impact how the coal was used, a spokeswoman said.
“We don’t know what the situation is,” Dawn Harris-Young, a spokeswoman for the EPA’s Southeast region, said Thursday evening.
The incident did not cause residents or businesses to lose power, Kraft said. Georgia Power is owned by Atlanta-based Southern Co. and has access to electricity from power plants across a four-state territory. Plant Bowen’s output makes up about 10 percent of that.
Georgia Power is also required by law to have a reserve margin of power during peak times, such as the summer. Even then, however, officials said there would not have been a strain on the grid.
“Even if we were in the middle of the summer months, we’d be prepared,” said Georgia Public Service Commission Chairman Chuck Eaton.
Because of its size, Plant Bowen routinely ranks as one of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation. Its four coal-fired units produce 3,200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 1.75 million residential homes for one year, when operating at full capacity.
But Georgia Power, once a coal-dominated utility, has significantly scaled back its use of the fuel to a little more than one-third of its electricity mix. This means even though Bowen may be a staple in Georgia Power’s fleet of power plants, it may not be running as often, or the units may not be running at full capacity, easing the amount of toxic emissions that are released into the air.
Bowen was built and began operating in the 1970s. Environmental groups have pressed for the closure of coal plants, especially older ones, because they often lack pollution controls and require more maintenance.
“There are always increased accidents with aging coal plants, and the Sierra Club is very concerned about worker safety on the job,” said Jenna Garland, a spokeswoman for the Sierra Club’s Atlanta chapter.
Georgia Power is shutting down 15 of its coal and oil fired units and is putting pollution-control equipment on others, including at Bowen.
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