O&M

Six People Injured by Explosion at Ohio Coal Power Plant

An incident at J.M. Stuart Station—a 2,318-MW coal and diesel generating facility operated by Dayton Power and Light Co. (DP&L)—resulted in six people being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Several media outlets referred to the event as an explosion, citing nearby residents’ accounts of the incident. At least a few people said they heard and felt the force of the blast from several miles away. Eyewitnesses also reported seeing black smoke coming from one of the stacks after the boom.

In a Facebook post, DP&L confirmed that the incident occurred at the plant four miles east of Aberdeen, Ohio, at around 1 p.m. local time on January 10. The plant was evacuated and all employees and contractors were accounted for, but the company said that it was still working to confirm details.

Soon after evacuating the plant, one soot-covered DP&L employee said, “Luckily, I believe everybody’s alright. Don’t know what happened, as of now. Something exploded—blowed half the building apart—don’t know what, but as far as we know, pretty much everybody’s accounted for.”

J.M. Stuart Station is co-owned by Dynegy Inc. (39%), DP&L (a subsidiary of AES Corp., 35%), and American Electric Power (26%). It consists of four coal-fired units that entered commercial operation from May 1971 to June 1974.

—Aaron Larson, associate editor (@AaronL_Power, @POWERmagazine)

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