Sister utilities Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company are set to deliver millions of dollars in revenue back to business and residential customers via a credit in the environmental surcharge on their bills. The credit is the result of the utilities’ work to power the Bluegrass with much-needed energy and recycle the by-products left over from the power generation process.
As the utilities’ four coal-fired generating stations churn out the tens of thousands of megawatt-hours of electricity customers require each day, three different by-products are left over after the coal is burned. These materials – fly ash, bottom ash and gypsum – are often referred to as coal combustion residuals, or CCRs. CCRs can vary slightly in their chemical properties depending on the characteristics of the coal they came from, such as where it was mined and how deep it was under the ground. As approved for many uses by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CCRs are able to be safely recycled and beneficially used to make products like concrete, cement, fertilizer, porcelain tile, wallboard and roofing shingles. Louisville’s new Lincoln and Lewis and Clark bridges were constructed using cement with fly ash from LG&E’s Mill Creek power plant.
LG&E and KU’s beneficial use program coordinates the sale of the utilities’ by-product materials to third-party companies for their production processes. The resulting contracts extend the life of LG&E and KU’s existing landfills, where the materials would otherwise be stored. The contracts also eliminate the need for future landfills ahead of the eventual retirement of the remaining coal-fired facilities and are increasingly generating more revenue, which is routed 100% back to customers as a credit, primarily calculated into the environmental surcharge on bills each month.