Cherokee Generating Station

Cherokee Generating Station is a natural gas-fired power plant in Adams County, Colorado, about 5 mi north of downtown Denver. Cherokee currently has a nameplate capacity of 1006.4 megawatts, and a net summer capacity of 886 megawatts, making it the largest power plant in Adams County, and the second largest natural-gas fired plant in the state behind Fort St. Vrain Generating Station. In 2022, Cherokee output a total of 3.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, representing roughly 5 percent of total electricity generation in Colorado. Cherokee is composed of four power generating units: one standalone natural gas fired steam turbine, two natural gas fired combustion turbines, and one steam turbine sourcing its heat from the exhaust of the two combustion turbines. This configuration (excluding the independent standalone steam turbine) is known as a combined cycle natural gas power plant. In 2022, the overall thermal efficiency of the steam turbine unit was 31.3%, compared to 43.2% of the combined cycle units. Efforts have been made to reduce the amount of water consumed, most likely from evaporation in the cooling towers. The combined cycle units were constructed in 2015, adding another 625.6 megawatts of nameplate capacity to the steam turbine's 380.8 MW. Prior to 2017, the steam turbine unit was almost entirely powered by coal, however it made the shift to only natural gas that year, and has not burned coal since. The change was partly due to the Clean Air Act of 2010, which had the focus of reducing emissions from coal power plants, however other factors such as the inexpensive price of natural gas and pressure for the state to transition away from coal also played parts.