Note: This is the third article in a series about Community Electric Cooperative’s power supply.
Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s Clover Power Station is fondly described as “our old workhorse” by ODEC staff. The plant is located in rural Halifax County, not far from the Virginia/North Carolina border. It has a generating capacity of 866 megawatts, 438 of which is allocated to ODEC and, in turn, the 11 rural electric cooperatives—including Community Electric—that it serves. The coal-fired power station was built in 1995 through an ODEC partnership with the investor-owned utility Dominion Energy.
In recognition of the electric sector’s transition to cleaner generating sources, one-third of the facility’s $1.2 billion construction cost was dedicated to state-of-the-art pollution control technology. Clover’s occasional operation makes it possible for ODEC to help meet periods of elevated electricity demand without relying upon older, less advanced coal-fired plants.
ODEC uses Clover as one option within the diverse mix of generating sources it owns, along with its practice of purchasing power at favorable wholesale prices from non-ODEC resources to meet its power supply needs (see Part One of this series).
“Clover is dependable, but it actually runs only about 25 days per year on average,” said Kirby Jordan, ODEC’s Vice President of Communications and Public Relations. “People are always surprised at how infrequently we rely on Clover. It is a baseload plant that really runs only when the weather is extremely cold or extremely hot.”
Because of its significant generating capacity, when demand rises, ODEC deploys Clover before its Marsh Run and Louisa power plants, both of which are natural gas-fired “peaker” stations.
“We want to build our system to be very efficient to meet our needs but not overbuild it,” said Andrew Vehorn, ODEC’s Senior Vice President of Member Engagement. “We strive to cover the load (demand) at the lowest possible price.”