On Thursday, East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) chose the John Sherman Cooper Power Station in Burnside to make the announcement that the cooperative will be undergoing one of the largest expansion projects they’ve undertaken.
And some of their extensive upgrades will take place at the Cooper Power Station itself, which will not only create a planned 35 new jobs, but will also prevent the plant from closing down – something that was a very real possibility before this project.
EKPC provides electricity to 16 owner-member cooperatives, one of which is South Kentucky RECC.
Don Mosier, chief operating officer for EKPC, announced that part of their plans include adding a new 745-megawatt natural gas-burning generator at the Cooper Station, as well as converting the existing Number Two unit at Cooper to a co-firing coal and natural gas unit.
The reason for the natural gas additions is due to new requirements from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which are requiring power stations to take action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or close by 2032.
Along with additions at Cooper, EKPC will convert existing coal-fueled units at the Spurlock Station in Mason County to being co-fired, and will build a new 214-megawatt natural gas power plat near Liberty, Ky.
“We have contracted with a gas pipeline company to build a pipeline laterally to this station and to the Spurlock station to fuel these plant conversions,” Mosier said.
The project is aimed at making sure “our rates remain as affordable as we can possibly make them, make sure that we’re competitive going forward, make sure we’re diversifying our portfolio, reducing our carbon footprint according to our sustainability plan, and basically keeping the lights on,” Mosier said.
Even without the new EPA guidelines, it has been clear to the cooperative that more power needs to be generated to the area. Mosier said that earlier this year, when Winter Storm Gerri rolled through the area, EKPC set a peak winter consumption record. The previous record was in December 2022, during another winter storm.
“Thanks to Cooper Station, we weathered that,” Mosier said. “Think of Cooper Station as small but mighty. … Had we not had Cooper Station and the generation here, we would have probably had to shed load during that event.”
Alan Ahrman, chair of the EKPC Board of Directors, added that in the next few years there will be even more demand in this region.
“A lot of these companies from around the world are coming back to the United States because they found out they can’t get good, reliable energy from these other countries,” he said, adding that the area has to be ready to meet those demands.
“Kentucky (has) the cheapest rates for electric east of the Mississippi River. That is why it’s an attractive area for some of these manufacturers,” Ahrman said.
However, due to the EPA rules, many coal-based power plants are shutting down, meaning that the most reliable and cheapest way of generating power is being taken away.
“It’s not that we particularly just want to keep coal running, it’s the reliable window we got,” Ahrman said. “When we get something that’s as reliable or more reliable, we’ll probably transition to it, if it’s cheaper.”
In the meantime, to prevent rolling blackouts, this expansion project is the best option, officials said.
The Cooper Power Station, named after the late Somerset native and U.S. Senator John Sherman Cooper, first went online with Unit Number One in 1964 and added Unit Number Two in 1969.
Cooper Plant Manager Phillip Duncan said he and his employees were grateful and excited about the new plans.
Duncan said the plant currently has 50 full-time employees and 10 contract workers. Without the changes, he and the other workers at the plant would have to look for new jobs.
He said the new project “means a future here for their employment that really was nonexistent going forward for the next five to 10 years. You’ve got to understand that prior to this announcement, we were basically on the path to have this station closed by 2026 (or) 2027. Now, we feel like our life for this station has been extended well past 2030 (or) 2040. … It means a lot, not only for the employees who are here right now, but employees that will be coming in the future.”
Many of those employees have been working at the plant for decades. Duncan said he has been working there for 33 years, while plant employee Kevin Pinson has been working there for 15 years.
“(I’ve) still got some career left to go, so I was like, ‘Okay, where am I going to spend the rest of my career?’” Pinson said. “Because once you work for East Kentucky, you don’t want to go anywhere else. It’s a great place to work, and I’ve been very fortunate to work here at this facility. You don’t want to see anything like that go away. It serves such an important function in Somerset. Not only Somerset, but Kentucky as a whole.”
Officials stated that KPC provides power to 89 counties in Kentucky that serve 1.1 million residential customers.
But more than that, for people like Pinson, seeing the change in how that electricity is produced is part of their family history.
“My dad was a coal miner,” Pinson said, “and I’ve seen it from where it comes out of the ground to now where it’s burned. So my family’s been in coal all my life.”
Pinson said he was originally from Belfry in Pike County, and he went to technical school there. “I had to leave, because there wasn’t any jobs in the mountains left for young folks, especially electricians.”
He worked several places in Kentucky before landing and staying in Pulaski, he said.
Nick Comer, external affairs manager for EKPC, said that with the new expansion at Cooper, the station will be hiring for jobs similar to those already on site – plant maintenance and plant operator jobs.
“These are good-paying jobs, with good job security. And we’ve been a proud part of this community for 60 years now,” Comer said.
He echoed what many of the Cooper Station workers said, in that most who work there have stayed on for many, many years.
“We would love to see that continue. We’re investing in the future of people stationed here,” he said.
The Cooper project is estimated to cost $73.8 million and is scheduled to be operational by December 2029.
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