Power plants and the grid in Kentucky
Kentucky has 63 power plants with 19.3 GW of capacity, coal the largest share at 9.2 GW. The map shows 13 data centers in Kentucky. Its interconnection queue holds 113 active requests for 17.1 GW.
Capacity by fuel
63 power plants with 19.3 GW of capacity, planned generators left out.
- Coal: 9.2 GW from 8 plants (48%)
- Natural gas: 7.5 GW from 14 plants (39%)
- Solar: 1.4 GW from 20 plants (7%)
- Hydro: 1.1 GW from 11 plants (6%)
- Biomass: 70 MW from 9 plants (under 1%)
- Oil: 11 MW from 1 plant (under 1%)
Largest plants
- Trimble County: Coal, 2.2 GW
- Ghent: Coal, 1.9 GW
- Paradise: Natural gas, 1.8 GW
- H L Spurlock: Coal, 1.3 GW
- E W Brown: Natural gas, 1.3 GW
- Shawnee: Coal, 1.2 GW
- Mill Creek (KY): Coal, 1.2 GW
- Riverside Generating LLC: Natural gas, 825 MW
- J K Smith: Natural gas, 756 MW
- Cane Run: Natural gas, 691 MW
Largest plants near Louisville
- Trimble County: Coal, 2.2 GW, 50 km away
- Mill Creek (KY): Coal, 1.2 GW, 24 km away
- Cane Run: Natural gas, 691 MW, 13 km away
- Bluegrass Generating Station: Natural gas, 495 MW, 35 km away
- Paddys Run: Natural gas, 170 MW, 8 km away
Largest plants near Covington
- East Bend: Coal, 600 MW, 36 km away
- Meldahl Hydroelectric Project: Hydro, 105 MW, 44 km away
- Bavarian LFGTE: Biomass, 5 MW, 28 km away
- Pendleton County LFGTE: Biomass, 3 MW, 40 km away
- Crittenden Solar Facility: Solar, 3 MW, 38 km away
Largest plants near Lexington
- E W Brown: Natural gas, 1.3 GW, 35 km away
- J K Smith: Natural gas, 756 MW, 40 km away
- Bluebird Solar LLC: Solar, 100 MW, 30 km away
- Dix Dam: Hydro, 32 MW, 34 km away
- Haefling: Natural gas, 24 MW, 4 km away
Planned and under construction
22 generators planned, under construction or testing, 3.2 GW in all, not counted above.
- Solar: 2.1 GW
- Natural gas: 934 MW
- Battery storage: 125 MW
- Hydro: 8 MW
Grid operators
- PJM (ISO or RTO): 28 plants
- MISO (ISO or RTO): 10 plants
- LG&E and KU (LGEE): 15 plants
- Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): 10 plants
Data centers
13 data center sites on the map.
- Jefferson County: 8 sites
- Operators with the most sites: Flexential (2), BluegrassNet (1), CenturyLink (1), Core Scientific (1), CyrusOne (1), Hosting (1), IgLou Internet Services Inc. (1), NGenX (1), PowerHouse (1), Western Hospitality Partners (1)
Interconnection queue
113 active requests to connect 17.1 GW of new generation and storage, and 8 suspended requests, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Queued Up data.
- Natural gas: 7.6 GW in 23 requests
- Solar: 7.1 GW in 74 requests
- Battery storage: 1.6 GW in 9 requests
- Coal: 348 MW in 2 requests
- Wind: 200 MW in 1 request
- Other: 150 MW in 1 request
- Hydro: 45 MW in 3 requests
Sources
Power plants: EIA-860M (US); NRCan NACEI (Canada, Mexico); WRI GPPD (Mexico); OpenStreetMap via Geofabrik (Canada, Mexico gap fill); USGS USWTDB/USPVDB; EPA eGRID; Natural Earth admin-1; HIFLD control areas; location attributes from WorldPop (R2025A), Global Solar Atlas PVOUT, Global Wind Atlas 4, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model and the previous publish's lines and substations; water distances from OpenStreetMap via Geofabrik; gas distances and county queue from the previous publish's EIA gas pipelines and LBNL Queued Up requests; nearest city from Natural Earth populated places; cooling degree days from NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals; elevation and slope from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, via AWS Open Data); water stress from WRI Aqueduct 4.0; ozone nonattainment from the EPA Green Book; drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor; tribal land from US Census TIGER/Line. License: ODbL (derivative database; EIA content is public domain, NRCan OGL-Canada, WRI GPPD CC BY 4.0; location attributes from WorldPop, Global Solar Atlas, Global Wind Atlas, LBNL Queued Up and WRI Aqueduct CC BY 4.0, USFS, USGS, EIA, NOAA, EPA, US Census and Natural Earth public domain, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, the U.S. Drought Monitor courtesy of NDMC)
Places gazetteer (cities, airports, regions): Natural Earth populated places; OurAirports; Natural Earth admin-1; Wattlas curated places. License: Public domain
Data centers: Epoch AI (CC BY); OpenStreetMap via the public Overpass API (ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Ringmast4r Global-Data-Center-Map (custom permissive license, attribution required); location attributes from WorldPop (R2025A), Global Solar Atlas PVOUT, Global Wind Atlas 4, USFS Wildfire Hazard Potential, the USGS National Seismic Hazard Model and the previous publish's lines and substations; gas distances and county queue from the previous publish's EIA gas pipelines and LBNL Queued Up requests; nearest city from Natural Earth populated places; generation within 20 km from the previous publish's plants; cooling degree days from NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals; elevation and slope from the Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (ESA, via AWS Open Data); water stress from WRI Aqueduct 4.0; ozone nonattainment from the EPA Green Book; drought from the U.S. Drought Monitor; tribal land from US Census TIGER/Line. License: CC BY; ODbL; custom permissive; WRI Aqueduct CC BY 4.0; USFS, USGS, EIA, NOAA, EPA, US Census and Natural Earth public domain; Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. and Airbus Defence and Space GmbH; the U.S. Drought Monitor courtesy of NDMC
Interconnection queue requests: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and GridTracker, "Queued Up". License: CC BY 4.0
States and provinces (simplified polygons): Natural Earth 10m admin-1. License: Public domain