Nucor Steel Gallatin
Large load · 4831 US-42, Warsaw, KY
Nucor Steel Gallatin in Ghent, Kentucky, is an electric arc furnace sheet mill on the Ohio River. A $650 million second-phase expansion, finished in 2022, roughly doubled its capacity to about 3 million tons a year and nearly doubled its electric load, from 220 MW to about 415 MW. Owen Electric Cooperative serves the mill with wholesale power from East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC), under a special contract in which most of the new load is interruptible.
Overview
- Contracted demand
- 415 MW
- operating
EKPC told the Kentucky PSC that the expansion would raise Nucor's load requirement by about 195 MW, from 220 MW to 415 MW. The project added a single-shell electric arc furnace, a twin-shell ladle metallurgy facility, a caster with double the capacity of the one it replaced, two rolling-mill stands, a baghouse, a pump house and air separation plant, lifting annual capacity from 1.6 million tons of coiled sheet to over 3 million tons.
Profile
- An interruptible special contract
- The mill takes service under an Industrial Power Agreement with Interruptible Service among EKPC, Owen Electric and Nucor, dated April 30, 2013. Because Nucor's interruptible load far exceeds the cap in Owen Electric's interruptible tariff, the expansion was handled by a Third Amendment that the PSC approved on February 26, 2021. Only 15 MW of the 195 MW expansion is firm demand, billed at standard rates. The amendment gives a diminishing energy credit over six years within a ten-year term, conditioned on usage staying above 1.5 times the 2017 average.
- Demand response in PJM
- EKPC sits in PJM, and it said it would offer the interruptible attributes of 180 MW of the Nucor expansion load as a demand response resource in the PJM capacity market, offsetting the capacity cost of the new load. EKPC said no transmission or distribution upgrades were needed beyond about $60,000 of metering and telemetry.
- From announcement to ramp-up
- Nucor bought the former Gallatin Steel from Gerdau and ArcelorMittal in 2014, added a pickle galvanizing line in 2019, and announced the phase II expansion in September 2018. Nucor reported the expansion work complete in July 2022, with the mill expected to reach its combined run rate of 3 million short tons a year in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Facility
- Activity
- Flat-rolled sheet steel from electric arc furnaces
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Site type
- Facility
- Operating status
- Operating
- Demand flexibility
- Only 15 MW of the 195 MW expansion is firm demand; the remainder is interruptible
Permits and agreements
- Agreement
- Industrial Power Agreement with Interruptible Service among EKPC, Owen Electric and Nucor (Third Amendment, ten-year term)
Related records
Timeline
- Sep 7, 2018
- Nucor approves a $650 million expansion to roughly double Gallatin's capacity.
Nucor Announces Plans to Expand Sheet Mill in Kentucky
- Feb 26, 2021
- Kentucky PSC-approved Third Amendment to the interruptible power agreement takes effect.
psc.ky.gov