Kintigh Generating Station
The Kintigh Generating Station, also known as Somerset Operating Co. LLC of the Upstate New York Power Producers was a 675-megawatt coal-fired power plant located in Somerset, New York. The plant was owned by AES Corporation until bankruptcy. Its only currently operating unit was launched into service in 1984. It is the second last operating coal-fired power plant in New York, the only other one operating in the state is AES Cayuga, north of Ithaca, across from the Taughannock State Park.
Coal is provided to the plant via the Somerset Railroad. The waste heat is dumped into Lake Ontario, resulting in a warm-water plume visible on satellite images. The plant's smoke stack can be seen across Lake Ontario from the shores of Toronto, Pickering, Oshawa, and Ajax, Ontario. It can also be seen from points along the Niagara Escarpment, including Lockport, NY, approximately 20 miles south.
Power from the plant is transferred by dual 345kV power lines on wood pylons, which run south from the plant through rural agricultural land. In Royalton, NY they split at their physical junction with the dual circuit 345-kV Niagara-to-Edic transmission line, owned by the New York Power Authority, one circuit heads west to a substation at Niagara Falls, the other heads east to Station 80 south of Rochester.
