Filed Under Environment

Avon Lake Power Plant

By Matthew Sisson
Rotor Installation
Rotor Installation On July 31, 1926, this rotor was installed into the final turbo generator of C.E.I.'s power station in Avon Lake. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections

With regard to Cleveland's west side, the addition of the Avon Lake Power Plant on Lake Road in 1926 is arguably the most significant project taken on by Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI). Situated 23 miles west of CEI's Public Square headquarters, the plant added another massive range of power and opened "a new industrial area in which electrical power will be available in abundance." Announced in 1924, the Avon Lake plant was built from March 1925 to July 1926 at a cost of approximately $30,000,000. The plant was constructed in Avon Beach Park in order to make use of the uniquely large, cool source of water in the Great Lakes. Cool water was necessary to condense steam as it left the turbines, and five-hundred tons of water were required for every ton of coal burned by the plant. To put this in perspective, so much water was needed for the Avon Lake plant that it had to pump twice the amount of water that the city water works did. When it opened, the Avon Lake plant became the largest of its kind in the world, capable of producing a magnificent 400,000 horsepower.

The Avon Lake plant's dependence on water led to an extraordinary dilemma on February 21, 1953. That day, "great masses of gizzard shad" collapsed the plant's water intake screens and caused each of the plan'ts seven generators to instantly shut down. This resulted in a significant power-outage throughout the entire Greater Cleveland area. After hours of scooping out the dead fish with a large crane, it took the work of another 50 men, including welders and divers, to fix the broken water intake screens located 35 feet below the surface. The Ohio Division of Wildlife determined that a sudden and significant drop in temperature had killed the fish, which subsequently created a large aggregation of dead fish on the surface near the plant's intake channel.

In addition to cool water, the plant also depended on a substantial amount of coal. In 1950, the Avon Lake plant reportedly processed 4,000 tons of coal a day. Despite a late-fifties effort by CEI to beautify the immediate area surrounding the Avon Lake power plant, significant backlash over the plant's environmental impact eventually led to its demise. In November of 2011, Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich publicly addressed the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA). Kucinich urged the EPA to take action against the plant, now controlled by GenOn, and limit its toxic air pollution. Kucinich cited that the "power plant in Avon Lake had released more than two million [tons] of toxic chemicals in 2010." The EPA determined that the Avon Lake power plant was guilty of excessive ozone emissions, and cited GenOn. In order to become compliant under stricter EPA regulations, the power plant would have to undergo an overhaul costing hundreds of millions of dollars. This pressured GenOn to announce plans to close the Avon Lake power plant in 2015, but instead the plant changed hands and continued to operate for six more years before finally shutting down in 2021. It was mostly demolished over the next two years as part of a lakefront redevelopment plan.

Images

Rotor Installation
Rotor Installation On July 31, 1926, this rotor was installed into the final turbo generator of C.E.I.'s power station in Avon Lake. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Explosive Vandalism
Explosive Vandalism On April 11, 1935, a bomb made of dynamite blew out two legs of a C.E.I. electrical tower. The tower proceeded to collapse into a twin tower at Avon Lake Power Plant. While the towers were down, the Avon Lake Power Plant's capacity was reduced from 190,000 horsepower to 30,000 horsepower. It took repairmen less than 48 hours to get the towers back in commission. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Expressway for Power Transmission, 1963
Expressway for Power Transmission, 1963 C.E.I.'s assistant general manager, E.E. Noble, stated just prior to the opening of the Avon Lake plant, "This territory, extending 100 miles along Lake Erie between Avon and the Pennsylvania state line, will surpass any other industrial area in the world." This illustration shows how C.E.I. placed in service a 345,000-volt line interconnecting its system with that of Ohio Power Co. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Turbogenerator, 1965
Turbogenerator, 1965 A local newspaper article contemporary to this photograph called the turbogenerator the "world's most important machine" for its power to drive huge industrial machines, its precision to keep electric clocks on split-second time, and its efficiency to light a 100-watt light bulb for 10 hours on less than 3/4 of a pound of coal. The Avon Lake unit pictured generated 250,000 kilowatts. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Steam Locomotive, 1977
Steam Locomotive, 1977 In 1925, C.E.I. created its own subsidiary railroad company, the Avon Railroad Company, to handle the transportation of large amounts of coal to the Avon Lake plant. James Museone (left) and Albert Kissell (right) were the last two operators of the old steam locomotive at C.E.I.'s Avon Lake Power Plant. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Coal Pile from Walker Rd., 1978
Coal Pile from Walker Rd., 1978 C.E.I. stockpiled a significant amount of coal across the street from the Avon Lake plant. The pile, approximately one mile long, is situated between Lake Rd. and Walker Rd. to this day. Locals spoke out in 1958, however, as a band of merchants from the nearby Avon Lake Shopping Center successfully opposed C.E.I.'s proposition for a second enormous stockpile of coal. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Avon Lake Power Plant, 1967
Avon Lake Power Plant, 1967 In a 1960 effort to satiate locals and merchants, C.E.I. made a $210,000 landscaping initiative to transform the area directly across the street from the Avon Lake Shopping Center. The venture included a 100-acre asphalt parking lot, and four acres of lawn containing 1,700 shrubs and 80 trees of varying sizes. This view is from the perspective of the shopping center. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections
Wind Tunnel Test at NYU, 1953
Wind Tunnel Test at NYU, 1953 A scale model of the Illuminating Co.'s Avon Lake Power Plant was placed in a wind tunnel to check the effect of air currents' on stack smoke. The pollution generated by the Avon Lake Power Plant has been a controversial subject, one that has led to the planned shutdown of the plant in April 2015. Source: Cleveland Memory Project, Cleveland State University Library Special Collections

Location

Lake Rd, Avon Lake, OH | Demolished

Metadata

Citation Info

Matthew Sisson, “Avon Lake Power Plant,” Cleveland Historical, accessed July 27, 2024, https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/458.
Published May 15, 2012. Last updated Sep 27, 2023.

Filed Under

Show Comments