PPL Montour

Located about one mile northeast of Washingtonville, Pa., the Montour power plant has two coal-fired units with environmental control technologies that minimize emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and fine particles.

Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1972; Unit 2 came on line the following year. Each unit has about 769 megawatts of generating capacity. The plant also has a 15 megawatt auxiliary unit for a total of about 1,552 megawatts of generating capacity.

The plant has about 280 full-time employees (figure adjusted for seasonal workload) and is owned by a subsidiary of PPL Generation.

PPL has invested about $600 million to install environmental control equipment on Montour’s two generating units that removes nearly all of the sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. Both scrubbers became operational in 2008.

The result will be cleaner air and a byproduct, synthetic gypsum, which will be used to make drywall at a separate manufacturing facility being built by U.S. Gypsum across the road from the power plant. This facility, made possible by PPL’s scrubber project, will create 150 news jobs for the community surrounding the plant.

Since the Montour plant isn’t located along a major river or stream, its main source of water is a 12-mile pipeline to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. As a backup water source, PPL created the Lake Chillisquaque reservoir. Surrounding the reservoir is the Montour Environmental Preserve, a 1,000-acre area that includes a wildlife refuge, hiking trails and a visitors center.

To learn more, visit PPL Montour's Web page.