John Amos plant in Winfield provides enough power for 3 million homes

WINFIELD -- From the scenic roads of Putnam County to Interstate 64 entering Nitro, it's hard to miss the giant plumes hovering above some of the cooling towers of American Electric Power's John E. Amos Plant.

AEP has operations in 10 states, but the John Amos site, located in Winfield, is the largest in the AEP system, generating enough electricity to power roughly 3 million homes.

Joe Haynes, community relations manager at Amos, says the history of the plant goes back quite a ways. It's named after John E. Amos, now deceased, who was a native Putnam County resident. He spent his career as an attorney, was a noted civic leader, was a part of the Legislature as Speaker of the House of Delegates, and sat on the Board of Directors for AEP from 1962 to 1978.

Sitting on nearly 5,500 acres, ground was broken for the Amos plant in 1968. Power generating unit one was completed in 1971, unit two in 1972 and unit three in 1973. It was noted as an accomplishment that the entire construction was finished within five years. Unit one and two generate 800 megawatts of electricity each, while unit three is a 1,300 megawatt producer.

"And that's as big as they come," Haynes said.

"I'm only aware of nine 1,300 megawatt units in the U.S., and seven are on the AEP system," Haynes said, adding that AEP's first 1,300 megawatt unit was in Winfield.

"It's certainly the largest generating plant in West Virginia, and certainly one of the largest in the U.S.," Haynes added.

So how does the plant generate electricity? Haynes explained the process.

Coal arrives by either barge or rail and is stored in piles equaling roughly 800,000 tons. Before going into a boiler, the coal is reduced to the consistency of face or talcum powder and mixed with air. As the coal mixture is then burned to a temperature of some 3,000 degrees, water is heated and changed into steam. The pressure of the steam is forced against the blades of a turbine. This turns a generator, which produces electricity.

Haynes explained that electricity production is unique to the manufacturing .

"Our product has to be ordered, manufactured, and delivered within a split second. When a customer flips a switch, they're ordering electricity. As our customers need more electricity, we make more electricity. As they need less, we make less."

Burning 22,000 to 23,000 tons of West Virginia coal each day, AEP is the nation's largest purchaser of coal, with the Amos plant being the largest user in the AEP system.

For some time now, the power generating plant has been working to satisfy a settlement agreement established this past October to address longstanding concerns about plant emissions.

Jeri Matheney, corporate communications manager, explained that AEP continues to work on a two-year environmental control project to remove or reduce most of the harmful pollutants potentially released during the plant's coal-fired production of energy.

The project involves the installation of three flue desulfurization systems, also known as "scrubbers," onto the three power generating units at the Amos location. The scrubbers reduce the nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide that is emitted when the plant burns coal. The discharge released in the plumes primarily consists of water vapor, which looks like white smoke.

"We've been working on the project for about one year now, and we have another year to go," Matheney said. The two-phase endeavor is expected to be completed by 2009.

"This is a $1 billion project and requires us to have a lot of contract workers. At times we have over 1,000 workers on this project. (They are) mostly union employees because we require very specialized workers."

Only about 480 acres of the plant site is occupied by what is considered plant operations. The remainder is used for ash storage, a byproduct of the burned coal, and gypsum storage, a byproduct of the scrubbers.

Haynes said electricity production yields two types of ash. One is the heavy ash that falls to the bottom of the boiler throughout the process. This is, in turn, recycled by the plant, sold to other companies to use in making cinder blocks, or used for road bed construction and ice control by the Department of Highways. The second, called fly-ash, is used in structural landfills to level out property either at the Amos site, or is purchased by others for the same use. The biggest benefit to AEP, Haynes said, "We're making usable land out of otherwise unusable land."

Amos currently has about 320 employees, but has roughly 150 other staff who work in conjunction with the plant's operations from other AEP sites, various organizations or are permanent contracted employees. In addition, there are some 1,600 construction workers who will be on site through the completion of the scrubber project.

Haynes said plant officials find it important to communicate with the community. One of the best tools for that is offering plant tours that allow people to see the organization in operation.

"We also go to schools or visit groups to talk about how electricity is made, or electricity and safety," he said. "We try to be a good neighbor and be involved in the community where we live, work and have a stake."

The company completes roughly 150-200 tours per year.