A milestone was reached at Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. this week when the Martins Creek power plant near Easton, Northampton County, began using natural gas to generate electricity, the utility said Wednesday (6/19).

Burning natural gas in the boiler of Unit 4, which formerly was only oil-fired and now can use either fuel, is the culmination of a project that began in 1991, when it was determined that the Interstate Energy Co. pipeline that carries oil to the plant from Marcus Hook, near Philadelphia, could be converted to transport gas as well as oil. IEC is a subsidiary of PP&L that owns and operates the pipeline.

PP&L purchases natural gas from gas suppliers and transports it through interstate gas pipelines to IEC. Metering and regulating stations have been installed at the intersection of IEC's pipeline and the interstate pipeline to measure the gas IEC receives for delivery to Martins Creek.

"With the ability to burn either natural gas or oil, we can use whichever is most economical," said Robert J. Shovlin, PP&L's vice president-Power Production & Engineering. "It helps PP&L to be more competitive and benefits our customers as well as helping the environment.

"Anytime gas is more economical than oil, we will use gas. When oil is cheaper, we'll use that," he said. "It will make Martins Creek energy more economical for our customers. It also will give PP&L an opportunity to sell cost-effective power in the competitive bulk power market and in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection. Those sales outside PP&L help to hold down the cost of energy for our customers."

Unit 3 at the plant also is being converted to enable natural gas or oil to be burned, he added. That work is expected to be completed late this fall when the unit is taken out of service for the final equipment installation.