Where is the power plant that our electricity comes from?

When taking a train to Hoboken, a large coal fueled power plant is passed. I always wonder if when I turn a light on in Maplewood, if that is where the electricity comes from there.

Thank you.

Nuclear, coal, and gas - in that order

http://oaspub.epa.gov/powpro/ept_pack.charts

The plants may not belong to PSEG, but likely put electric in our wires.

One of the plants is the Essex County Resource Recovery Plant, turning our garbage into electric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_County_Resource_Recovery_Facility It is right next to the Turnpike.

The others

Kearny Generating Station - Coal /Gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kearny_Generating_Station

Hudson Generating Station - Coal Jersey City, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Generating_Station

I don't think you can see this from the train. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newark_Energy_Center

Pictures are Kearny and Hudson

Some of the coal plants in our area - maybe all of them - are peaking units meaning that they are fired up during periods of high demand.

And they are duel fuel so these day at current prices run mostly on natural gas.

But your power hardly comes from a single plant. And you can use an alternative power supplier that has a profile you prefer.

tjohn said:
Some of the coal plants in our area - maybe all of them - are peaking units meaning that they are fired up during periods of high demand.

I'm not sure about that. I've always heard that coal plants run at a relatively constant level and gas plants ramp up/down as needed

The question is, "Where is the power plant that our electricity comes from?"

The short answer is, "All of them." Each plant that is operating at the time you turn on the light, or start posting on MOL, is providing electricity to the grid, and whatever appliance you are using uses that electricity. If you ask, "Which is the power plant I am paying for, for the electricity I am using?", that is something different. If you select a provider of electricity, then what you pay for electricity goes to that provider. If you just accept what PSE&G provides as an electricity mix, then that's what you are paying for.

That being said - you may be paying for solar, but using electricity at night. The electricity you use at night may be from something that is not solar (just sayin'). But, during the day, your solar provider will be "paying back" that electricity to the source which provided you with electricity during the night. And that is what you will pay for.

That is a very simplistic explanation, I admit. If someone thinks it is misleading, I am not averse to agreeing with that, with an explanation.

The newly activated Susquehanna Roseland power lines from Berwick, Pa to Roseland, NJ which were forced through the Delaware National Recreation Area and Scenic River by PSEG provide a lot of your electricity, from coal and nuclear plants in PA. This was done so PSEG could send it's Bergen County plant power to NYC where rates are higher and profits rose 500 million a year. PSEG was able to force this on NJ ratepayers, who paid the billion dollar tab for the lines, due to the phased in deregulation of the NJ electricity market signed into law by Republican Governor Christie Whitman. Before deregulation, PSEG was not allowed to export electricity generated in NJ just for the sake of profits.

Thank you all for your thoughtful and in depth responses. I learned a lot. That's crazy about the effects of deregulation!

This also provides clarity around those things I get in the mail from other power companies. Perhaps it's time to move away from PSEG, but presuambly I would still need to get gas from them

Almost everyone who has posted here about switching from pse&g has regretted it when their rates jumped later. Be careful.