Cherokee Generating Station is a natural gas-fired power plant in North Washington, Colorado, about 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 gasâÂÂfired plant in the state behind Fort St. Vrain Generating Station. In 2022, Cherokee produced 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 gasâÂÂfired steam turbine, two natural gasâÂÂfired combustion turbines, and one steam turbine sourcing heat from the exhaust of the two combustion turbines. This configuration (excluding the 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; it shifted to only natural gas that year and has not burned coal since. The change was partly driven by Colorado's Clean AirâÂÂClean Jobs Act (HB 10-1365), along with factors such as low natural gas prices and state-level pressure to transition away from coal.