J. Robert Welsh Power Plant

J. Robert Welsh Power Plant is a 1-gigawatt, coal power plant located east of Pittsburg, Texas in Titus County, Texas. It is operated by SWEPCO, a subsidiary of AEP. The plant is named after J. Robert Welsh, a former President and Board Chairman of SWEPCO.

History

Welsh Power Plant had three units constructed: Unit 1 began operations in 1977, Unit 2 began operations in 1980, and Unit 3 began operations in 1982. All three units were installed with boilers from Babcock & Wilcox and turbines from Westinghouse. Combined, the three units had an operating capacity of 1,674 MW.
In 2012, AEP announced they were reducing output at Unit 2 to coincide with the commencement of commercial operations at John W. Turk Jr. Coal Plant in Arkansas. Unit 2 was officially decommissioned in April 2016 as a part of a major retrofitting project to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for Units 1 and 3. It is currently scheduled to stop burning coal in 2028.
The remaining two units use sub-bituminous coal mined from the Powder River Basin shipped via rail.
Close to it, there is Welsh HVDC Converter Station, a back-to-back HVDC station.