Electric generating plantEIA plant no. 884

Will County

Type
Conventional Steam Coal
Status
Retired June 2022
Nameplate (when running)
1,269 MW
Units
4
In service since
1955–1963
Operator
Midwest Generations Eme LLC
Location
Romeoville, Will County, Illinois

Will County is retired. EIA's monthly generator inventory (EIA-860M, August 2026) lists every generator at this coal plant as retired; the last one retired in June 2022. It is not counted among Illinois's operating plants or in any ranking on this site.

The figures below describe the plant when it ran: equipment from EIA Form 860 (2024).

The 1,269 MW is nameplate capacity: the most this plant's generators are rated to produce, not what it actually generates. EPA eGRID reports no positive net generation for it this year.

How it works

A steam plant burning coal

coal insteamwater returns1boiler burns coal2steam spins turbine3generator4cooling condenses steam
  1. A boiler burns coal to turn water into high-pressure steam.
  2. The steam pushes through a turbine, spinning it thousands of times a minute.
  3. The turbine's shaft turns a generator, which sends power to the grid.
  4. Spent steam is cooled back into water — by a cooling tower, a lake or a river — and pumped back to the boiler.

Why the numbers look like this: a boiler and turbine this size take hours to bring up from cold, so steam plants were built to run steadily for long stretches. A steam plant with a low capacity factor is usually being held in reserve, or run only through the hottest and coldest weeks.

This plant highlighted in navy-ringed pin; other generators within 25 miles shown as fuel-colored dots.

NuclearNatural GasCoalHydroelectricSolarBiomass

Location

Address529 Romeo Rd
CityRomeoville
CountyWill County
StateIllinois
ZIP60446
Coordinates41.63340, -88.06290
OperatorMidwest Generations Eme LLC

Generators (4)

IDTechnologyFuelNameplate capacityStatusOnline
4Conventional Steam CoalSubbituminous Coal598 MWRetired1963
3Conventional Steam CoalSubbituminous Coal299 MWRetired1957
1Conventional Steam CoalSubbituminous Coal188 MWRetired1955
2Conventional Steam CoalSubbituminous Coal184 MWRetired1955

Grid context

NERC RegionRFC
Balancing AuthorityPJM Interconnection, LLC

About Coal plants

Coal plants burn pulverized coal to boil water and spin steam turbines. They emit substantial CO₂, SO₂, and NOₓ along with mercury and particulate matter. Modern units include scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction; older units are increasingly being retired or converted to natural gas as economics shift.

Other plants in Will County

View all plants in Will County →

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