Somerset Power

Somerset Power LLC is a subsidiary of NRG Energy and owner of the Somerset Power Generating Station in Somerset, Massachusetts. As the tenth largest power company in the United States, NRG Energy owns and operates power plants in seven states, Europe, and Australia.

Somerset Power Generating Station
The plant began operating in 1925. The Somerset Power Generating Station is one of four coal-fired power plants still operating in Massachusetts. Oil and jet fuel are burned at the plant in addition to coal.

In 2001, Massachusetts enacted air pollution regulations for six coal-fired power plants that had been grandfathered in under the federal Clean Air Act. Those regulations require that the Somerset station either shut down or switch to a fuel with cleaner emissions by 2010.

As of April 2009, only one boiler (Unit #6, Boiler 8) is still operating. Boiler 8 was installed in 1959.

The Somerset station is on the National Grid (Massachusetts Electric). According to iLoveMountains.org, at least some of the coal burned at the Somerset station was mined by mountaintop removal.

The cities of Fall River, MA, New Bedford, MA, Brockton, MA, and Providence, RI are within a thirty-mile radius of both the Somerset station and Dominion's Brayton Point station.

In November, 2009, NRG announced that it would close the Somerset plant on January 2, 2010. A company spokesman cited "market forces" and a "requirement that we close down or repower [by] September of 2010." NRG plans to convert the plant from burning coal to a plasma gasification process, which breaks down coal into its component parts before converting it into energy. No timetable for that conversion has been announced.

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