Brace yourselves. We are about to delve into the story of the Kearny Generating Station. This power plant stands on the banks of the Hackensack River. It hums with a history as rich and complex as the currents flowing beside it.
The Kearny Generating Station is a peaking power plant. It is located in South Kearny New Jersey. Public Service Electric and Gas Company or PSEG owns and operates it. The station uses ten simple cycle combustion turbines. These turbines generate a total of 456 MW of power. The Kearny Generating Station connects to the PJM Interconnection. This is part of the Eastern Interconnection grid.
Let’s rewind to July 12 1923. Ground was broken for the original Kearny Station. Thomas A. Edison helped inaugurate and synchronize this AC station in 1925. Back then it was New Jersey’s largest electric generating station. Initially the plant ran on six coal-fired units. These were later converted to oil. All of these units have since been retired. The last one was retired in 2006.
In 1933 the Kearney Station added a GE Binary Mercury Steam Turbine Generator system. This system featured a 20-MW mercury vapour turbine and a 30-MW steam turbine.
From 1967 the steam units got a boost from peaker units. Three of these have been retired. Today there are ten simple-cycle peaker units. Four burn natural gas and liquid fuel since 2001. The remaining six use only natural gas since 2012.
October 2012 marked a new chapter. Six new GE LM6000 natural gas-fired units went online. They can produce over 270 net megawatts of power.
PSEG Kearny Generating Station is a 605MW gas fired power project. ArcLight Capital Partners currently owns the project. The fuel comes from Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company LLC. In one year the project emitted 178676.18t of carbon dioxide. GE Power supplied ten LM6000PC turbines. Each turbine has a 60.5MW nameplate capacity.
The original Kearny Generating Station had three smokestacks. It was built in 1923. It originally used six coal-fired units. These were later converted to oil. The last of these units was retired in 2006. Six natural gas fired units went into service in 2012.
The Kearny Generating Station stands as a testament to engineering. It also shows our evolving energy needs. It has adapted over the decades from coal to oil to natural gas. The Kearny Generating Station continues to power New Jersey.