NRG plans to restart its natural gas plant on the old Sherwin Alumina property

NRG Energy Inc. is reportedly planning to resume operations at its mothballed natural gas plant on the old Sherwin Alumina property in Gregory from June 2019.

David Knox, a spokesman for NRG Energy Inc. said the natural gas plant was built in 2002 to provide energy to its partner Sherwin Alumina. In 2016 it was mothballed when Sherwin Alumina filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations, he said.

However, now that the issues related to bankruptcy filing have been resolved, work is underway to restart the plant by early June, according to a news release.

"I am pleased to announce the return to service of this highly efficient natural gas plant," said Mauricio Gutierrez, president and CEO of NRG, in a statement. "The Public Utility Commission of Texas' recent actions to further strengthen the ERCOT market reinforced our decision to return Gregory to service ahead of summer, providing additional reliability to our customers and Texas' growing economy."

The Sherwin Alumina property has been undergoing remediation since the time it entered into bankruptcy, said Knox. After its closure, it was put under the ownership of Corpus Christi Alumina, a subsidiary of Sherwin Alumina's Swiss-based parent company, Glencore Holdings.

Knox also said the NRG plant would undergo some revamping too, as it shifts away from providing steam to the Sherwin Alumina plant.

"Instead of doing that steam out (to the plant), it just focuses all that steam on the steam turbine and generating that power," he said. "Without the primary customer, we needed to have the economics work."

The NRG plant has a capability to power about 77,000 homes on the hottest days of the year at full power, the news release states.

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