Centralia Power Plant

The Centralia Power Plant, known also as the Centralia Coal Plant, Centralia Steam Plant, or Centralia Steam-Electric Plant, is a coal-fired power plant supplemented with a natural gas power plant known as the Big Hanaford Power Plant. The combined coal and natural gas facility is located east of Centralia in the Hanaford Valley of Lewis County, Washington. The plant, owned by TransAlta, is situated on 11,000 acres (4, 500 ha) and at its peak generated enough energy to power Los Angeles. The two-boiler, fossil fuel power station was constructed beginning in 1968. Both boilers were fully operational by 1972. The Centralia Coal Mine was opened in 1970 to provide the fuel source for the plant. The Skookumchuck Dam was built to provide water as a cooling source. The natural gas facility opened in 2002. The coal mine was closed in 2006 due to operational costs. Following in 2011, a Washington state law was signed to permanently shutter the steam plant. The first boiler unit was shut down in 2020. The Centralia Power Plant, the last commercial energy production facility to be powered by coal in the state, was expected to close as a coal powered plant by the end of 2025 but was ordered to remain operational through mid-June 2026 by the Department of Energy. TransAlta announced in December 2025 that the second coal boiler of the plant was to be converted into a natural gas-burning unit.

Power station data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).