Belews Creek

Belews Creek Steam Station is a 2.24-GW, two-unit coal-fired generating facility located on Belews Lake in Stokes County, North Carolina. It is Duke Energy’s largest coal-burning power plant in the Carolinas and consistently ranks among the most efficient coal facilities in the United States. During 2006, it was the fifth most efficient coal power plant in the United States with a heat rate of 9,023 Btu/kWh. The remaining 62.2% of energy released by the burning coal is in the form of heat. It is dumped into Belews Lake, a man-made lake created by Duke Power for cooling water purposes in the early 1970s. In 2008, it was the #1 most efficient coal power plant in the United States with a heat rate of 9,204 British thermal units per kilowatt-hour (2.697 kWh/kWh) or 37.1% conversion efficiency. In 2018 a complete redesign of the back-pass on Unit-1 significantly boosted this efficiency, ranking it the 2nd most efficient coal-fired power plant in the world.