November 2024 Update

Turtle Creek Station is beginning to turn the corner from construction to operations. During the week of Nov. 4, a major milestone called “first fire” is taking place. The exact date and time first fire will take place has some fluidity, with many moving pieces that should take place by the end of this week. We are currently on track for first fire to take place on Thursday, November 7th or Friday, November 8th. During this first fire, the gas turbine, Unit 1, is brought up to operational speed, essentially becoming capable of generating electricity, using natural gas as fuel.

Close neighbors or passersby may see some visible gray smoke coming out of the stack exhaust at the plant during this time. The smoke is caused by the burn-off of coating, dust or other debris in the piping. As the generating units are tested and tuned, exhaust will become much less noticeable. It will dissipate within approximately 15-minutes. While first fire can be noisy inside the plant, we do not expect the noise to be noticeable outside the plant.

The unit will then run on natural gas for about 22 days, generating electricity at different levels for testing. Then it will shut down for several weeks before coming back online, but with diesel fuel oil. This will result in another start-up process that will take place at Turtle Creek Station, but with fuel oil, in early December.

Unit 2, which is currently nearing the end of construction, is scheduled to begin its first-fire process shortly after Unit 1 – within the window that Unit 1 is running on natural gas.

We are excited about this next big step as we grow and diversify our generation resources to keep reliable, resilient power flowing to our customers.