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Dickerson Power Plant
Maryland Utility
One of three electric generating stations on the Potomac River in the Washington, D.C. region (the others are at Morgantown, Md. and Alexandria, Va.), the Dickerson plant was the latest to shut down its coal generating facilities.
Dedicated on September 24, 1959, the plant used coal, oil, and gas to generate electricity for Washington, D.C., and most of Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland--the service area of Potomac Electric Power Company. PEPCO built the plant and owned it until December 2000, when the company sold its generating plants to Mirant Corp., an international energy conglomerate; Mirant was acquired in late 2010 by GenOn Energy, based in Houston, Texas, which changed its name to NRG Corporation, but was shut down in 2020.
Capacity of the plant was 853 megawatts. A 900-foot long canal, 30 feet wide, was fed by water released from the plant. In 1991, concrete boulders were added to create a canoeing and kayaking site However, after the plant shur down in July 2020, the whitewater training course moved to Brookmont, Maryland.
In 2025, the owners of the shuttered plant proposed that the site be used for a data center. More information on the proposal is at this link.
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Contact Information
NRG Corporation
1000 Main Street
Houston TX 77002
202-585-3801
Website