Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities have announced plans to build a new natural gas powered generating plant in western Kentucky and a smaller, solar-powered station. Spokeswoman Chris Whelan says the facility planned for Muhlenberg County will be similar to the generating plant being built at the companies’ Cane Run site in Jefferson County.
"It will be 700 megawatts, roughly $700 million to construct, and then we’re also proposing we will build a 10 megawatt solar facility at one of our existing sites," explains Whelan.
Assuming the plants receive regulatory approval, the solar facility will go online in 2016, with the Muhlenberg plant running by 2018.
LG&E and KU are retiring their coal-fired generating stations at Cane Run, Green River in western Kentucky and Tyrone in Woodford County.
Whelan says the new gas-fired plant will create several hundred construction jobs and about 40 permanent jobs.
