MOUNT PLEASANT/TITUS COUNTY (KYTX) - Luminant plans to shut two of three units at its 1970s-era
coal plant in Titus County in the winter and spring months, but will bring them
back online during the peak summer months of 2013, according to the Texas
Tribune.
Luminant, a major Texas power-generation company, told the
Texas grid operator this week. The move would take away 1,200 megawatts, or
more than 1 percent of capacity, from the Texas power grid described as
strained.
The Monticello coal plant near Mount Pleasant has been
operating at about a quarter of its capable power for most of 2012.
Luminant spokesman Allan Koenig said the closures had
nothing to do with an Environmental Protection Agency cross-state pollution
rule that a federal court threw out this past week. But he did say that the two
Monticello units would have remained idle year-round had the rule taken effect.
The closures at Monticello will not result in job losses,
Koenig said, nor will activity be slowed at the lignite mine on the plant's
site. The plant's third unit will continue to operate year-round.
No other Luminant plants, including its three-unit Martin
Lake facility near Tatum, will be affected by the move.
